An optimising model of price adjustment with missing information is developed where firms choose the speed of price adjustment to minimise the expected loss in disequilibrium. The loss is due to lost profits and the expected cost of failing to coordinate price changes with competitors. Assuming that a higher speed of price adjustment decreases the former and increases the latter, it is shown th...

The Fed kept interest rates low and essentially unchanged during the late 1990s despite a booming economy and record-low unemployment. These interest rates were accommodative by historical standards. Nonetheless, inflation remained low. How did the Fed succeed in sustaining rapid economic growth without fueling inflation and inflationary expectations? In retrospect, it is evident that the produ...

In this paper, we follow the recent empirical literature that has specified reduced-form models for price setting that are closely tied to (S, s)-pricing rules. Our contribution to the literature is twofold. First, we propose an estimator that relaxes distributional assumptions on the unobserved heterogeneity. Second, we use the estimator to examine the prevalence of positive price changes in a...

Given the effects of inflation on the decline of household welfare and its impact on production and investment, identifying the factors affecting it in order to adjust inflation and achieve price stability is necessary. Therefore, using the TVP-FAVAR model, which differentiates the fluctuations in factors affecting inflation, we try to identify the effects of different shocks such as liquidity,...

This paper uses a unique micro data set to test for the presence of price asymmetries at the firm level. We find that firm pricing is indeed asymmetric, as Tobin (1972) suggested long ago. Moreover, there is strong evidence to support Ball and Mankiw's (1994) suggestion that firm price asymmetry is dependent on inflation. However, Ball and Mankiw's theory seems to hold better for changes in cos...

This paper develops a stochastically-based method of measuring core inflation. The approach exploits the persistent tendency towards high kurtosis evident in the cross-sectional distribution of consumer price changes evident in New Zealand and elsewhere. High kurtosis makes the sample mean a less efficient and less robust estimator of the population, or underlying, mean price change than is an ...

The New-Keynesian Phillips curve is usually reported to fit the data better when lagged inflation, and therefore backward-looking price setting, is included in the equation. We argue that the same inflation persistence can be generated by letting the shocks in the economy be highly correlated in a model where price setting is purely forward-looking. Previous estimates in the literature are bias...

We compare macroeconomic models of sticky-prices (Calvo and Costsof-adjustment) with flexible price models in terms of optimal seigniorage. This sheds light on the importance of relative price distortions. Sticky-price models with no price dispersion terms have unattractive implications, we argue, when it comes to the derivation of optimal policies. We provide examples where they may imply very...

IIn recent years, policymakers have generally relied on regulatory policies to address financial stability concerns. However, our understanding of these policies and their efficacy in curbing housing prices is limited. In this paper, we examine the impact of three regulatory tools i.e. LTV (loan to value) ratio, reserve requirement rate (RR), and capital adequacy ratio (CAR) on housing price in...

Empiricaf models of commodity prices are potentially important aids to decision-makers, especially as the economy has grown more complex. A typicrd time series of commodity prices exhibks positive autocorrelation, occasional spikes, and random variability, and conceptual models have been developed to explain this behavior. But, the leap from theory to empirical applications is large because of ...