Stabilizing Macroeconomic Shocks: Experiments on the Interaction between Central Bank and Private Sector

宏观经济学家通常认为，通胀和就业的波动与社会成本有关。中央银行可以利用货币政策来遏制一国通货膨胀率和就业率的波动。然而，在一个受到供应冲击影响的经济体中，央行面临着在稳定通胀和就业之间的权衡。另一方面，私营部门理论上可以通过适当调整工资和价格来吸收供应冲击。私人部门对供应冲击的反应应该更有效率，因为它们可以应对不对称冲击，让央行摆脱稳定就业的压力，从而实现通胀的有效稳定。但是，价格和工资调整与协调问题相关，因为不同部门的价格是战略补充，对外部冲击的最佳反应取决于其他私人机构的反应。中央银行有能力通过利率影响产品需求来解决协调问题。然而，货币政策只能应对总体冲击，可能会排挤私人部门的回应，而这些回应是在非对称冲击之后向均衡趋同所必需的。因此，我们确定了相互作用的两个来源：-中央银行稳定政策和私营部门反应之间的战略替代：中央银行和私营部门之间存在冲突，因为积极稳定是代价高昂的，尽管双方都受益于稳定就业。-私营部门代理人行动之间的战略互补性：一个部门对宏观经济冲击的工资或价格调整，提高了在其他经济部门调整工资或价格的动机。在这个研究项目中，我们将使用实验室实验来生成遵循现代宏观模式的游戏的数据。这种方法的好处是，我们可以在其他方面平等的待遇中实施不同的政策制度，从而隔离透明度、低俗言论和对规则的承诺的影响。我们的具体研究问题是，哪些政策制度最适合于解决央行和分散的私营部门在稳定就业和最小化外生冲击的福利成本方面的利益冲突。

Macroeconomists often assume that fluctuations of inflation and employment are associated with social costs. A central bank can use monetary policy to contain fluctuations in a country's inflation and employment rates. In an economy affected by supply shocks, however, the central bank faces a tradeoff between stabilizing inflation and employment. The private sector, on the other hand, can theoretically absorb supply shocks by proper adjustments of wages and prices. Private responses to supply shocks should be more efficient, because they can address asymmetric shocks and relieve the central bank from stabilizing employment, so that it can achieve an efficient stabilization of inflation. But, price and wage adjustments are associated with a coordination problem, because prices in different sectors are strategic complements and the optimal response to an exogenous shock depends on the responses of other private agents. Central banks have the ability of solving the coordination problem by affecting product demand via the interest rate. However, monetary policy can just address aggregate shocks and may crowd out private responses that are, however, necessary for convergence to equilibrium after asymmetric shocks. We, thus, identify two sources of interactions:- Strategic substitution between central bank's stabilization policy and private sector's reaction: there is a conflict between the central bank and the private sector, since active stabilization is costly, although both parties benefit from stabilizing employment. - Strategic complementarity between actions of private sector's agents: wage or price adjustments to macroeconomic shocks in one sector raise the incentives to adjust wages or prices in other sectors of the economy.In this research project, we will use laboratory experiments to generate data on a game that follows a modern macro model. The advantage of this approach is that we can implement different policy regimes in treatments that are otherwise equal and, thus, isolate the effects of transparency, cheap talk, and commitments to rules. Our specific research question is which policy regimes are best-suited to resolve the conflict of interests between central bank and a decentralized private sector in stabilizing employment and minimize the welfare costs of exogenous shocks.