Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/87160 
Year of Publication: 
2013
Series/Report no.: 
Tinbergen Institute Discussion Paper No. 13-016/II
Publisher: 
Tinbergen Institute, Amsterdam and Rotterdam
Abstract: 
The way in which individual expectations shape aggregate macroeconomic variables is crucial for the transmission and effectiveness of monetary policy. We study the individual expectations formation process and the interaction with monetary policy, within a standard New Keynesian model, by means of laboratory experiments with human subjects. Three aggregate outcomes are observed: convergence to some equilibrium level, persistent oscillatory behavior and oscillatory convergence. We fit a heterogeneous expectations model with a performance-based evolutionary selection among heterogeneous forecasting heuristics to the experimental data. A simple heterogeneous expectations switching model fits individual learning as well as aggregate macro behavior and outperforms homogeneous expectations benchmarks. Moreover, in accordance to theoretical results in the literature on monetary policy, we find that an interest rate rule that reacts more than point for point to inflation has some stabilizing effects on inflation in our experimental economies, although convergence can be slow in presence of evolutionary learning.
Subjects: 
Experiments
New Keynesian Macro Model
Monetary Policy
Expectations
Heterogeneity
JEL: 
C91
C92
D84
E52
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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