The Optimal Inflation Rate with Discount Factor Heterogeneity

Antoine Lepetit

Working Papers from HAL

Abstract: This paper shows that deviations from long-run price stability are optimal in the presence of price stickiness whenever profit and utility flows are discounted at a different rate. In that case, a monetary authority acting under commitment will choose a path for the inflation rate that ends with a non-zero value. Such a property is relevant in a wide range of macroeconomic environments. I first illustrate this by studying optimal monetary policy in a New Keynesian model with a perpetual youth structure. In this setting, profit flows are discounted more heavily than utility flows and the optimal inflation target is equal to 3.2 percent in a baseline calibration of the model. I also show that this property leads to a positive long-run inflation rate in models with firm entry and exit and in environments with search and matching frictions in the labor market and another form of nominal rigidity, wage stickiness.

Keywords: optimal inflation rate; inflation target; sticky prices; optimal monetary policy; discount factor heterogeneity; perpetual youth model (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017-05-25
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dge, nep-mac and nep-mon
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.science/hal-01527816v3
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

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Working Paper: The Optimal Inflation Rate with Discount Factor Heterogeneity (2018)
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