Limited Rationality and Strategic Interaction - The Impact of the Strategic Environment on Nominal Inertia

Jean-Robert Tyran and Ernst Fehr

University of St. Gallen Department of Economics working paper series 2002 from Department of Economics, University of St. Gallen

Abstract: The evidence from many experiments suggests that people are heterogeneous with regard to their abilities to make rational, forward looking, decisions. This raises the question when the rational types are decisive for aggregate outcomes and when the boundedly rational types shape aggregate results. We examine this question in the context of a long-standing and important economic problem – the adjustment of nominal prices after an anticipated money shock. Our experiments show that when agents’ actions are strategic substitutes adjustment to the new equilibrium is extremely quick whereas under strategic complementarity adjustment lasts very long and is associated with relatively large real effects. This adjustment difference occurs because price expectations are very flexible under substitutability and very sticky under complementarity. Our results suggest that strategic complementarity does not only provide incentives for the rational types to partly mimic the behavior of the boundedly rational types but it also renders people less rational and forward looking. In addition, under complementarity people attribute less rationality to the other players.

Keywords: Bounded rationality; strategic substitutes; strategic complements; nominal rigidity; sticky prices (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C92 E31 E52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 49 pages
Date: 2002-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Limited Rationality and Strategic Interaction: The Impact of the Strategic Environment on Nominal Inertia (2008)
Working Paper: LIMITED RATIONALITY AND STRATEGIC INTERACTION: THE IMPACT OF THE STRATEGIC ENVIRONMENT ON NOMINAL INERTIA (2007)
Working Paper: Limited Rationality and Strategic Interaction - The Impact of the Strategic Environment on Nominal Inertia (2004)
Working Paper: Limited Rationality and Strategic Interaction, The Impact of the Strategic Environment on Nominal Inertia
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