Working Paper: NBER ID: w12605
Authors: N. Gregory Mankiw; Ricardo Reis
Abstract: This paper develops and analyzes a general-equilibrium model with sticky information. The only rigidity in goods, labor, and financial markets is that agents are inattentive, sporadically updating their information sets, when setting prices, wages, and consumption. After presenting the ingredients of such a model, the paper develops an algorithm to solve this class of models and uses it to study the model's dynamic properties. It then estimates the parameters of the model using U.S. data on five key macroeconomic time series. It finds that information stickiness is present in all markets, and is especially pronounced for consumers and workers. Variance decompositions show that monetary policy and aggregate demand shocks account for most of the variance of inflation, output, and hours.
Keywords: General Equilibrium; Sticky Information; Macroeconomics
JEL Codes: E10; E30
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| monetary policy shocks (E39) | inflation (E31) |
| monetary policy shocks (E39) | output growth (O40) |
| monetary policy shocks (E39) | hours worked (J22) |
| aggregate demand shocks (E00) | output growth (O40) |
| aggregate demand shocks (E00) | hours worked (J22) |
| sticky information (C54) | consumer and worker behavior (D19) |