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When does determinacy imply expectational stability?

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In the recent literature on monetary and fiscal policy design, adoption of policies that induce both determinacy and learnability of equilibrium has been considered fundamental to economic stabilization. We study the connections between determinacy of rational expectations equilibrium, and expectational stability or learnability of that equilibrium, in a general class of purely forward-looking models. We ask what types of economic assumptions drive differences in the necessary and sufficient conditions for the two criteria. We apply our result to a relatively general New Keynesian model. Our framework is sufficiently flexible to encompass lags in information, a cost channel for monetary policy, and either Euler equation or infinite horizon approaches to learning. We are able to isolate conditions under which determinacy does and does not imply learnability, and also conditions under which long horizon forecasts make a clear difference to conclusions about expectational stability. The sharpest result is that informational delays break equivalence connections between determinacy and learnability.

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  • James B. Bullard & Stefano Eusepi, 2009. "When does determinacy imply expectational stability?," Working Papers 2008-007, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedlwp:2008-007
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    1. Stefano Eusepi & Bruce Preston, 2011. "Expectations, Learning, and Business Cycle Fluctuations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(6), pages 2844-2872, October.
    2. Cho, Seonghoon, 2015. "Determinacy and e-stability under reduced-form learning," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 128(C), pages 69-71.
    3. Muto, Ichiro, 2011. "Monetary policy and learning from the central bank's forecast," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 35(1), pages 52-66, January.
    4. Ellison, Martin & Pearlman, Joseph, 2011. "Saddlepath learning," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 146(4), pages 1500-1519, July.
    5. Ascari, Guido & Mavroeidis, Sophocles & McClung, Nigel, 2023. "Coherence without rationality at the zero lower bound," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 214(C).
    6. Eo, Yunjong & McClung, Nigel, 2021. "Determinacy and E-stability with interest rate rules at the zero lower bound," Bank of Finland Research Discussion Papers 14/2021, Bank of Finland.
    7. Michele Berardi & Jaqueson K. Galimberti, 2012. "On the plausibility of adaptive learning in macroeconomics: A puzzling conflict in the choice of the representative algorithm," Centre for Growth and Business Cycle Research Discussion Paper Series 177, Economics, The University of Manchester.

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    Keywords

    Rational expectations (Economic theory);

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