Asymmetric inflation expectations, downward rigidity of wages, and asymmetric business cycles

A-Tier
Journal: Journal of Monetary Economics
Year: 2020
Volume: 114
Issue: C
Pages: 174-193

Score contribution per author:

4.022 = (α=2.01 / 1 authors) × 2.0x A-tier

α: calibrated so average coauthorship-adjusted count equals average raw count

Abstract

Households’ inflation expectations are more responsive to inflationary news than to disinflationary news, and this asymmetry in expectations can cause downward wage rigidity. Asymmetric expectations imply that monetary policy can have asymmetric effects on employment and wages. I microfound asymmetric household expectations using ambiguity-aversion: households, who do not know the quality of their information, overweight inflationary news since it reduces their purchasing power, and underweight deflationary news since it increases their purchasing power. Although wages are downwardly rigid in this environment, monetary policy need not have a bias towards using inflation to grease the wheels of the labor market.

Technical Details

RePEc Handle
repec:eee:moneco:v:114:y:2020:i:c:p:174-193
Journal Field
Macro
Author Count
1
Added to Database
2026-01-24