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Uncertainty Over Models and Data: The Rise and Fall of American Inflation

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  • SETH PRUITT

Abstract

An economic agent who is uncertain of her model updates her beliefs in response to the data. The updating is sensitive to measurement error which, in many cases of macroeconomic interest, is apparent from the process of data revision. I make this point through simple illustrations and then analyze a recent model of the Federal Reserve's role in U.S. inflation. The existing model succeeds at fitting inflation to optimal policy, but fails to link inflation to the economic trade-off at the heart of the story. I modify the model to account for data uncertainty and find that doing so ameliorates the existing problems. This suggests that the Fed's model uncertainty is largely overestimated by ignoring data uncertainty. Consequently, now there is an explanation for the rise and fall in inflation: the concurrent rise and fall in the perceived Philips curve trade-off.
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  • Seth Pruitt, 2012. "Uncertainty Over Models and Data: The Rise and Fall of American Inflation," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 44, pages 341-365, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:mcb:jmoncb:v:44:y:2012:i::p:341-365
    DOI: j.1538-4616.2011.00490.x
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    3. Lubik, Thomas A. & Matthes, Christian, 2016. "Indeterminacy and learning: An analysis of monetary policy in the Great Inflation," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 85-106.
    4. Lafuente, Juan A. & Pérez, Rafaela & Ruiz, Jesús, 2014. "Time-varying inflation targeting after the nineties," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 400-408.
    5. Xueting Yu & Yuhan Zhu & Guangming Lv, 2020. "Analysis of the Impact of China’s GDP Data Revision on Monetary Policy from the Perspective of Uncertainty," Emerging Markets Finance and Trade, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 56(6), pages 1251-1274, May.
    6. Pablo Aguilar & Jesús Vázquez, 2015. "The role of term structure in an estimated DSGE model with learning," LIDAM Discussion Papers IRES 2015007, Université catholique de Louvain, Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales (IRES).
    7. Aguilar, Pablo & Vázquez, Jesús, 2021. "An Estimated Dsge Model With Learning Based On Term Structure Information," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 25(7), pages 1635-1665, October.

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