Optimal Stabilization Policy When Wages and Prices are Sticky: The Case of a Distorted Steady State

Pierpaolo Benigno and Michael Woodford

No 10839, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: Erceg et al. (2000) show that when both wages and prices are sticky, maximization of expected utility is equivalent to minimizing a loss function with three terms, involving measures of the variability of wage inflation, price inflation and the output gap respectively. Here we generalize their analysis, most importantly by not assuming the existence of output and employment subsidies that eliminate the distortions resulting from market power in goods and labor markets, so that the equilibrium level of output under flexible wages and prices would not necessarily be optimal. We show that a quadratic loss function can still be justified that involves the same three terms, albeit with different relative weights and a different definition of the output gap. Many conclusions of Erceg et al. are thus found to apply more generally. However, we argue that in the presence of significant steady-state distortions, simple rules of the kind that they examine are likely to approximate optimal policy less closely than is suggested by their numerical results.

JEL-codes: E52 E61 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2004-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cba, nep-dge and nep-mac
Note: EFG ME
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (25)

Published as Pierpaolo Benigno & Michael Woodford, 2005. "Optimal stabilization policy when wages and prices are sticky: the case of a distorted steady state," Proceedings, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.), pages 127-180.

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Journal Article: Optimal stabilization policy when wages and prices are sticky: the case of a distorted steady state (2005)
Working Paper: Optimal Stabilization Policy When Wages and Prices are Sticky: The Case of a Distorted Steady State (2004)
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