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The Welfare Consequences of Monetary Policy and the Role of the Labor Market: a Tax Interpretation

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We explore the distortions in business cycle models arising from inefficiencies in price setting and in the search process matching firms to unemployed workers, and the implications of these distortions for monetary policy. To this end, we characterize the tax instruments that would implement the first best equilibrium allocations and then examine the trade-offs faced by monetary policy when these tax instruments are unavailable. Our findings are that the welfare cost of search inefficiency can be large, but the incentive for policy to deviate from the inefficient flexible-price allocation is in general small. Sizable welfare gains are available if the steady state of the economy is inefficient, and these gains do not depend on the existence of an inefficient dispersion of wages. Finally, the gains from deviating from price stability are larger in economies with more volatile labor flows, as in the U.S.

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  • Federico RAVENNA & Carl E. WALSH, 2010. "The Welfare Consequences of Monetary Policy and the Role of the Labor Market: a Tax Interpretation," Cahiers de recherche 10-01, HEC Montréal, Institut d'économie appliquée.
  • Handle: RePEc:iea:carech:1001
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    1. Schmitt-Grohe, Stephanie & Uribe, Martin, 2007. "Optimal simple and implementable monetary and fiscal rules," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(6), pages 1702-1725, September.
    2. Faia, Ester, 2008. "Optimal monetary policy rules with labor market frictions," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 32(5), pages 1600-1621, May.
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    5. Stephanie Schmitt-Grohé & Martín Uribe, 2006. "Optimal Fiscal and Monetary Policy in a Medium-Scale Macroeconomic Model," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 2005, Volume 20, pages 383-462, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Robert Shimer, 2004. "The Consequences of Rigid Wages in Search Models," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 2(2-3), pages 469-479, 04/05.
    7. Gali, Jordi & Gertler, Mark, 1999. "Inflation dynamics: A structural econometric analysis," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(2), pages 195-222, October.
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    9. Arthur J. Hosios, 1990. "On The Efficiency of Matching and Related Models of Search and Unemployment," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 57(2), pages 279-298.
    10. Taylor, John B., 1993. "Discretion versus policy rules in practice," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 195-214, December.
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    1. And so they did... (2)
      by Petar Sisko in Money Mischief on 2013-11-12 02:40:00

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    Cited by:

    1. Sergio A. Lago Alves, 2016. "Labor Markets in Heterogenous Sectors," Working Papers Series 421, Central Bank of Brazil, Research Department.
    2. Sergio A. Lago Alves, 2018. "Monetary Policy, Trend Inflation, and Unemployment Volatility," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 50(4), pages 637-673, June.
    3. Sergio A. Lago Alves, 2012. "Trend Inflation and the Unemployment Volatility Puzzle," Working Papers Series 277, Central Bank of Brazil, Research Department.
    4. Jordan Roulleau-Pasdeloup, 2014. "Why is the Government Spending Multiplier Larger at the Zero Lower Bound ? Not (Only) Because of the Zero Lower Bound," Working Papers 2014-02, Center for Research in Economics and Statistics.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • E52 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Monetary Policy
    • E58 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Central Banks and Their Policies
    • J64 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Unemployment: Models, Duration, Incidence, and Job Search

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