IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/amerec/v58y2013i2p153-159.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Teaching Time-Inconsistency Consistently

Author

Listed:
  • Mark Kuperberg

Abstract

This paper places Kydland and Prescott's classic analysis of time inconsistency in a fuller context by examining their result in five different economic environments. Pedagogically, the paper uses a consistent mathematical treatment of the subject throughout. To understand the motivations of the central bank, the paper begins with the environment that Kydland-Prescott successfully criticized wherein the public has static inflationary expectations and the central bank assumes that they do. The main sections of the paper go on to analyze time inconsistency in four alternative environments defined by the belief structure of the central bank with respect to the nature of the economy and the mechanism by which the public forms its inflationary expectations. It is shown that the inconsistency result holds when the central bank does not understand the natural rate hypothesis and does not believe that the public forms their inflationary expectations rationally. The inconsistency result, however, does not hold in the other cases.

Suggested Citation

  • Mark Kuperberg, 2013. "Teaching Time-Inconsistency Consistently," The American Economist, Sage Publications, vol. 58(2), pages 153-159, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:amerec:v:58:y:2013:i:2:p:153-159
    DOI: 10.1177/056943451305800208
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/056943451305800208
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/056943451305800208?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kenneth Rogoff, 1985. "The Optimal Degree of Commitment to an Intermediate Monetary Target," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 100(4), pages 1169-1189.
    2. Barro, Robert J., 1986. "Reputation in a model of monetary policy with incomplete information," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(1), pages 3-20, January.
    3. Li, Jingyuan & Liu, Yongming & Tian, Guoqiang, 2009. "A reputation strategic model of monetary policy in continuous-time," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 31(4), pages 523-533, December.
    4. Kydland, Finn E & Prescott, Edward C, 1977. "Rules Rather Than Discretion: The Inconsistency of Optimal Plans," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 85(3), pages 473-491, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Carlos J. Asarta & Austin S. Jennings & Paul W. Grimes, 2017. "Economic Education Retrospective," The American Economist, Sage Publications, vol. 62(1), pages 102-117, March.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Christoph Moser & Axel Dreher, 2010. "Do Markets Care about Central Bank Governor Changes? Evidence from Emerging Markets," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 42(8), pages 1589-1612, December.
    2. Yvan Lengwiler & Athanasios Orphanides, 2002. "Optimal Discretion," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 104(2), pages 261-276, June.
    3. Schaumburg, Ernst & Tambalotti, Andrea, 2007. "An investigation of the gains from commitment in monetary policy," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(2), pages 302-324, March.
    4. Nir Klein, 2003. "Reputation and Indexation in an Inflation Targeting Framework," Bank of Israel Working Papers 2003.13, Bank of Israel.
    5. Franz R. Hahn & Peter Mooslechner, 1999. "Zur Fundierung des Designs des Europäischen Zentralbanksystems," WIFO Monatsberichte (monthly reports), WIFO, vol. 72(1), pages 49-60, January.
    6. Jiahong Gao & Robert R. Reed, 2023. "Preventing bank panics: The role of the regulator's preferences," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 56(2), pages 387-422, May.
    7. Huang, Haizhou & Wei, Shang-Jin, 2006. "Monetary policies for developing countries: The role of institutional quality," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(1), pages 239-252, September.
    8. Haizhou Huang & A. Jorge Padilla, 2002. "Fiscal Policy and the Implementation of the Walsh Contract for Central Bankers," Annals of Economics and Finance, Society for AEF, vol. 3(1), pages 27-42, May.
    9. Barthélemy, Jean & Mengus, Eric, 2018. "The signaling effect of raising inflation," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 178(C), pages 488-516.
    10. Persson, Torsten & Tabellini, Guido, 1999. "Political economics and macroeconomic policy," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & M. Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 22, pages 1397-1482, Elsevier.
    11. Manfred Neumann, 1991. "Precommitment by central bank independence," Open Economies Review, Springer, vol. 2(2), pages 95-112, June.
    12. Alan S. Blinder, 1997. "Distinguished Lecture on Economics in Government: What Central Bankers Could Learn from Academics--And Vice Versa," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 11(2), pages 3-19, Spring.
    13. Ugo Panizza, 1997. "Optimal Contracts for Central Bankers: Inflation versus Money Supply and Exchange Rate Targets," Open Economies Review, Springer, vol. 8(1), pages 5-29, January.
    14. Francesca Castellani, 2001. "Central Bank Independence and Accountability Under Complete Information," IHEID Working Papers 05-2001, Economics Section, The Graduate Institute of International Studies.
    15. Roni Frish & Nir Klein, 2002. "Rules versus Discretion – A Disinflation Case," Bank of Israel Working Papers 2002.09, Bank of Israel.
    16. Carlos Carvalho & Tiago Fl´orido & Eduardo Zilberman, "undated". "Transitions in Central Bank Leadership," Textos para discussão 657, Department of Economics PUC-Rio (Brazil).
    17. Zhen Zhu, 1997. "Dynamic Inconsistency and Exchange-Rate Target Zones: A Welfare Analysis," International Economic Journal, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 11(1), pages 15-38.
    18. Rotondi, Zeno, 2000. "Credibility of optimal monetary delegation: do we really need prohibitive reappointment costs?," Discussion Paper Series In Economics And Econometrics 0003, Economics Division, School of Social Sciences, University of Southampton.
    19. Pierre Cahuc, 1989. "Modes de formation des salaires et stagflation : une analyse en termes de théorie des jeux," Revue Économique, Programme National Persée, vol. 40(3), pages 421-440.
    20. Sanghoon Lee, 2010. "Dynamic Inconsistency in Counterterrorism," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 27(4), pages 369-385, September.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:amerec:v:58:y:2013:i:2:p:153-159. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://journals.sagepub.com/home/aex .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.