Timeless Perspective Policymaking: When is Discretion Superior?

Richard Dennis

No 38, NCER Working Paper Series from National Centre for Econometric Research

Abstract: In this paper I show that discretionary policymaking can be superior to timeless perspective policymaking and identify model features that make this outcome more likely. Developing a measure of conditional loss that treats the auxiliary state variables that characterize the timeless perspective equilibrium appropriately, I use a New Keynesian DSGE model to show that discretion can dominate timeless perspective policymaking when the Phillips curve is relatively flat, due, perhaps, to firm-specific capital (or labor) and/or Kimball (1995) aggregation in combination with nominal price rigidity. These results suggest that studies applying the timeless perspective might also usefully compare its performance to discretion, paying careful attention to how policy performance is evaluated.

Keywords: Discretion; timeless perspective; policy evaluation. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C61 E52 E58 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 29
Date: 2009-01-20
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cba, nep-dge and nep-mac
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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http://www.ncer.edu.au/papers/documents/NCER_WpNo38Jan09.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Timeless perspective policymaking: When is discretion superior? (2008)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:qut:auncer:2009_38

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