The Natural Rate Hypothesis: An idea past its sell-by date / Roger E.A. Farmer.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Farmer, Roger E.A.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w19267.

NBER working paper series no. w19267

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2013.

Summary:

Central banks throughout the world predict inflation with new-Keynesian models where, after a shock, the unemployment rate returns to its so called "natural rate'. That assumption is called the Natural Rate Hypothesis (NRH). This paper reviews a body of work, published over the last decade, which is critical of the NRH. I argue that the NRH does not hold in the data and I provide an alternative paradigm that explains why it does not hold. I replace the NRH with the assumption that the animal spirits of investors are a fundamental of the economy and I show how to operationalize that idea by constructing an empirical model that outperforms the new-Keynesian Phillips curve. I model animal spirits with a new fundamental that I call the belief function.

Notes:

Print version record

August 2013.