Sticky-Price Models of the Business Cycle: Specification and Stability

Peter N. Ireland

NBER Working Paper No. 7511
Issued in January 2000
NBER Program(s):   ME

This paper focuses on the specification and stability of a dynamic, stochastic, general equilibrium model of the American business cycle with sticky prices. Maximum likelihood estimates reveal that the data prefer a version of the model in which adjustment costs apply to the price level but not to the inflation rate. Formal hypothesis test detect instability in the estimated parameters, particularly in estimates of the representative household's discount factor. Evidently, more detailed descriptions of the economy are needed to explain movements in interest rates before and after 1979.

(1940 K)

Published: Ireland, Peter N. "Sticky-Price Models Of The Business Cycle: Specification And Stability," Journal of Monetary Economics, 2001, v47(1,Feb), 3-18.

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