Publications
Effects of Monetary Policy on Household Expectations: The Role of Homeownership
Journal of Monetary Economics, Forthcoming.
with
Hie
Joo Ahn and
Shihan
Xie
pdf
appendix
featured in
Brookings
[FEDS WP]
We study the role of homeownership in the effectiveness of monetary policy on households'
expectations based on individual-level microdata in the U.S. We find that homeowners lower their
near-term inflation expectations and optimism about the labor market outlook in response to a rise in
mortgage rates, while renters are less likely to do so. We further show that forward guidance shocks
lead to similar differences between homeowners and renters. Our results suggest that homeowners
pay attention to news on interest rates and adjust their expectations accordingly in a manner
consistent with the intended effect of monetary policy. We characterize this empirical finding with a
rational inattention model where mortgage payments create an incentive for homeowners to acquire
information on monetary policy, unlike renters. This housing-driven endogenous attentiveness is
the key mechanism behind the compelling empirical link among homeownership, attention, and the
transmission of monetary policy.
@article{AXY2024,
author = {Hie Joo Ahn and Shihan Xie and Choongryul Yang},
title = {Effects of monetary policy on household expectations:
The role of homeownership},
journal = {Journal of Monetary Economics},
doi = {https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jmoneco.2024.103599},
url = {https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304393224000527},
year = {2024}
note = {Forthcoming}
}
Redistribution and the Monetary–Fiscal Policy Mix
Quantitative Economics, July 2023, Vol. 14, Issue 3, 817–853.
with
Saroj Bhattarai and
Jae Won Lee
pdf
[FEDS WP]
[CAMA WP]
[CESifo WP]
We show that the effectiveness of redistribution policy is tied to how much inflation
it generates, and thereby, to monetary-fiscal adjustments that ultimately finance the transfers.
In the monetary regime, taxes increase to finance transfers while in the fiscal regime,
inflation rises, imposing inflation taxes on public debt holders. We show analytically that
the fiscal regime generates larger and more persistent inflation than the monetary regime.
In a two-sector model, we quantify the effects of the CARES Act in a COVID recession.
We find that transfer multipliers are larger, and that moreover,
redistribution is Pareto improving, under the fiscal regime.
@article{BLY2023,
author = {Bhattarai, Saroj and Lee, Jae Won and Yang, Choongryul},
title = {Redistribution and the monetary-fiscal policy mix},
journal = {Quantitative Economics},
volume = {14},
number = {3},
pages = {817-853},
doi = {https://doi.org/10.3982/QE2030},
url = {https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.3982/QE2030},
eprint = {https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.3982/QE2030},
year = {2023}
}
Rational Inattention, Menu Costs, and Multi-Product Firms: Micro Evidence and Aggregate Implications
Journal of Monetary Economics, May 2022, Vol. 128, 105–123.
Winner of the 2020 SCE Student Prize
[Link]
pdf
Using a New Zealand firm-level survey, I show that firms producing more goods have both
better information about inflation and more frequent but smaller price changes. To explain these
empirical findings, I develop a general equilibrium menu cost model with rationally inattentive
multi-product firms. I show that the interaction of nominal and informational rigidities leads to a
new selection effect: price adjusters are better informed than non-adjusters. This selection
endogenously generates a leptokurtic distribution of desired price changes, which amplifies
monetary non-neutrality. Compared to a one-product baseline, the real effects of monetary
shocks are 12% smaller in a two-product model.
@article{Yang2022,
title = {Rational inattention, menu costs, and multi-product firms:
Micro evidence and aggregate implications},
journal = {Journal of Monetary Economics},
volume = {128},
pages = {105-123},
year = {2022},
issn = {0304-3932},
doi = {https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jmoneco.2022.04.004},
url = {https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304393222000587},
author = {Choongryul Yang},
}
Local Scars of the US Housing Crisis
Journal of Monetary Economics, April 2021, Vol. 119, 40–57.
with
Saroj Bhattarai and
Felipe Schwartzman
pdf
[Richmond Fed WP]
The 2006-09 US housing crisis had scarring local effects. For a given county, a housing shock generating
a 10% reduction in housing wealth from 2006 through 2009 led to a 4.4% decline in employment by 2018
and a commensurate decline in value added. This persistent local effect occurred despite the shock having
no significant impact on labor productivity. The local labor market adjustment to the housing shock was
particularly costly: local wages did not respond, and long-run convergence in the local labor market slack
instead took place entirely through population losses in affected regions. Moreover, the 2002-06 housing
boom does not generate significant employment gains, indicating that the employment losses relative to
2006 are also losses relative to the counterfactual case in which there was no housing cycle.
@article{BSY2021,
title = {Local scars of the US housing crisis},
journal = {Journal of Monetary Economics},
volume = {119},
pages = {40-57},
year = {2021},
issn = {0304-3932},
doi = {https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jmoneco.2021.02.001},
url = {https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304393221000167},
author = {Saroj Bhattarai and Felipe Schwartzman and Choongryul Yang},
}
Working Papers
What Can Measured Beliefs Tell Us About Monetary Non-Neutrality?
with
Hassan Afrouzi and
Joel P. Flynn
pdf (Jun ’24)
[NBER WP]
[FEDS WP]
This paper studies how measured beliefs can be used to identify monetary non-neutrality.
In a general equilibrium model with both nominal rigidities and endogenous information acquisition,
we analytically characterize firms' optimal dynamic information policies and
how their beliefs affect monetary non-neutrality. We then show that data on the cross-sectional
distributions of uncertainty and pricing durations are both necessary and sufficient to identify
monetary non-neutrality. Finally, implementing our approach in New Zealand survey data, we
find that informational frictions approximately double monetary non-neutrality and endogeneity of information is
important: models with exogenous information would overstate monetary
non-neutrality by approximately 50%.
Land Development and Frictions to Housing Supply over the Business Cycle
with
Hyunseung Oh and
Chamna Yoon
pdf (Feb ’24)
appendix
featured in
Bloomberg
[FEDS WP]
Using a novel data set of U.S. residential land developments, we document that the average time to develop residential
properties—which includes both the time spent preparing land infrastructures and construction—is about three years,
consistent with sizable lags in housing investment projects. We show that the time to develop is highly dispersed across
locations, a finding that helps quantify the housing supply elasticity that is relevant for assessing local housing
variations over the business cycle. We also show that incorporating long and dispersed time to develop into an otherwise
standard housing investment model helps rationalize some empirical facts on the housing market. Our model implies that
policies to boost housing supply are less effective in immediately stabilizing house prices for regions where land
development takes a long time.
Shocks, Frictions, and Policy Regimes: Understanding Inflation after the COVID-19 Pandemic
with
Taeyoung Doh
pdf (Dec ’23)
[KC Fed WP]
We set- up a two-sector New Keynesian model with input-output linkages to study the
persistently high inflation during the post-COVID-19 period. We include multiple shocks as
well as several amplification channels of these shocks in a parsimonious model to quantify the
relative importance of each factor. We calibrate the model to match the pre-COVID-19 data
and alter parameters governing 1) the fiscal rule, 2) inflation feedback in the monetary policy
rule, 3) elasticity of substitution among intermediary inputs in production, and 4) the size of a
sectoral demand shift shock to explain the post-COVID-19 data. We obtain estimates of shocks
in the model to fit goods inflation data during the post-COVID-19 period and use aggregate
inflation to test the model's ability to explain the recent inflationary episode. Although aggregate
demand shocks and a sectoral demand shift shock have played a significant role in the initial
inflation surge during 2021, the propagation of these shocks into the persistently high aggregate
inflation was also helped by lower inflation feedback in the monetary policy response relative
to the pre-COVID-19 period. Compared with other changes in parameters, this alteration of
the monetary policy rule best fits the level and persistence of the post-COVID-19 aggregate
inflation. While lowering the elasticity of substitution among intermediary inputs can match the
level of inflation, it does a poorer job of explaining the persistence of inflation compared with
allowing changes in the monetary policy rule.
Dynamic Rational Inattention and the Phillips Curve
with
Hassan Afrouzi
Reject and resubmit at American Economic Review
pdf (Apr ’21)
[CESifo WP]
— Documentation:
html
pdf
— Packages:
Julia
Matlab
— Jupyter Notebooks:
We develop a fast, tractable, and robust method for solving the transition path of
dynamic rational inattention problems in linear-quadratic-Gaussian settings.
As an application of our general framework, we develop an attention-driven theory of
dynamic pricing in which the Phillips curve slope is endogenous to systematic aspects
of monetary policy. In our model, when the monetary authority is more committed to
stabilizing nominal variables, rationally inattentive firms pay less attention to changes
in their input costs, which leads to a flatter Phillips curve and more anchored
inflation expectations. This effect, however, is not symmetric.
A more dovish monetary policy flattens the Phillips curve in the short-run but generates
a steeper Phillips curve in the long-run. In a calibrated version of our general equilibrium model,
we find that our mechanism quantifies a 75% decline in the slope of the Phillips curve
in the post-Volcker period, relative to the period before it.
Macroeconomic Effects of Capital Tax Rate Changes
with
Saroj Bhattarai,
Jae Won Lee, and
Woong Yong Park
pdf (May ’22)
[FEDS WP]
[Dallas Fed WP]
[CESifo WP]
We study aggregate, distributional, and welfare effects of a permanent reduction in the capital tax rate in
a dynamic equilibrium model with capital-skill complementarity. Such a tax reform leads to expansionary
long-run aggregate effects but is coupled with an increase in the skill premium. Moreover,
the expansionary long-run aggregate effects are smaller when distortionary labor or consumption tax rates have to
increase
to finance the capital tax rate cut. An extension to a model with heterogeneous households shows that consumption
inequality
increases in the long-run. We study transition dynamics and show that short-run effects depend critically on the
monetary policy
response: whether the central bank allows inflation to directly facilitate government debt stabilization and
how inertially it raises interest rates. Finally, we contrast the long-term aggregate welfare gains with short-term
losses
and show that welfare gains for the skilled go together with welfare losses for the unskilled.
Work in Progress
Tax Shocks and Financial Heterogeneity
with
Cooper Howes
Income Inequality and Government Spending Multipliers