Sticky Information: A Model of Monetary Nonneutrality and Structural Slumps

N. Gregory Mankiw and Ricardo Reis

No 8614, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: This paper explores a model of wage adjustment based on the assumption that information disseminates slowly throughout the population of wage setters. This informational frictional yields interesting and plausible dynamics for employment and inflation in response to exogenous movements in monetary policy and productivity. In this model, disinflations and productivity slowdowns have a parallel effect: They both cause the path of employment to fall below the level that would prevail under full information. The model implies that, in the face of productivity change, a policy of targeting either nominal income or the nominal wage leads to more stable employment than does a policy of targeting the price of goods and services. Finally, we examine U.S. time series and find that, as the model predicts, unemployment fluctuations are associated with both inflation and productivity surprises.

JEL-codes: E0 E3 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2001-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cba, nep-mac and nep-mon
Note: EFG ME
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (56)

Published as Aghion, P., R. Frydman, J. Stiglitz and M. Woodford (eds.) Knowledge, Information, and Expectations in Modern Macroeconomics: In Honor of Edmund S. Phelps. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003.
Published as N. Gregory Mankiw & Ricardo Reis, 2007. "Sticky Information in General Equilibrium," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 5(2-3), pages 603-613, 04-05.

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Working Paper: Sticky Information: A Model of Monetary Nonneutrality and Structural Slumps (2001)
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