Do Flexible Durable Goods Prices Undermine Sticky Price Models?

The “neoclassical synthesis” sticky price model exhibits strange behavior when augmented with markets for durable goods with flexible prices. While in the data the output of durable goods responds strongly and positively to a loosening of monetary policy, in dynamic general equilibrium models a monetary expansion causes the output of flexibly priced durables to contract. In an instructive special case in which the only sticky prices are those of nondurables, the negative co-movement of durable and nondurable output exactly offsets and the behavior of aggregate output in the model is very similar to that of a model with fully flexible prices. This neutrality result is special, but the perverse response of durables to monetary policy is highly robust. The reason for the comovement problem is the combination of a naturally high intertemporal elasticity of substitution for the purchases of durables and temporarily high factor prices associated with an economic expansion.