An Economical Business-Cycle Model

Pascal Michaillat and Emmanuel Saez

No 6, Working Papers Series from Institute for New Economic Thinking

Abstract: In recent decades, advanced economies have experienced low and stable inflation and long periods of liquidity trap. We construct an alternative business-cycle model capturing these two features by adding two assumptions to a money-in-the-utility-function model: the labor market is subject to matching frictions, and real wealth enters the utility function. These assumptions modify the two core equations of the standard New Keynesian model. With matching frictions, we can analyze equilibria in which inflation is fixed and not determined by a forward-looking Phillips curve. With wealth in the utility, the Euler equation is modified and we can obtain steady-state equilibria with a liquidity trap, positive inflation, and labor market slack. The model is simple enough to inspect the mechanisms behind cyclical fluctuations and to study the effects of conventional and unconventional monetary and fiscal policies. As a byproduct, the model provides microfoundations for the classical IS-LM model. Finally, we show how directed search can be combined with costly price adjustments to generate a forward-looking Phillips curve and recover some insights from the New Keynesian model.

JEL-codes: E12 E24 E32 E63 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 41 pages
Date: 2014-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-mac and nep-upt
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (55)

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https://www.ineteconomics.org/uploads/papers/WP6-Saez.pdf First version, 2014 (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: An economical business-cycle model (2022)
Working Paper: An Economical Business-Cycle Model (2021)
Working Paper: An Economical Business-Cycle Model (2014)
Working Paper: An economical business-cycle model (2014)
Working Paper: An Economical Business-Cycle Model (2014)
Working Paper: An Economical Business-Cycle Model (2014)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:thk:wpaper:6

DOI: 10.2139/ssrn.2586245

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