曼昆宏观经济学第13章.ppt

* After displaying this slide, you might consider giving your students an exercise using the P.C. curve. One possibility would be to ask them to draw a graph of the PC curve, then show what happens to it in the face of an adverse supply shock or an increase in the natural rate of unemployment, giving intuition for each. The intuition for why an increase in the natural rate shifts the PC upward (or rightward) is as follows: At any given value of actual unemployment, an increase in the natural rate implies a decrease in cyclical unemployment, which increases inflation by increasing pressures for wages to rise. Thus, each value of unemployment has a higher value of inflation than before. * * * A good example to illustrate the difference between adaptive and rational expectations. Suppose the Fed announces a shift in priorities, from maintaining low inflation to maintaining low unemployment w/o regard to inflation; this shift will start affecting policy next week. If expectations are adaptive, then expected inflation will not change, because it is based on past inflation. The Fed’s announcement pertains to the future, and has no impact on past inflation. If expectations are rational, then expected inflation will increase right away, as people factor this announcement into their forecasts. * Here’s an interesting and important implication: Central banks that are politically independent are typically more credible than those that are “puppets” to elected officials. Hence, in countries with central banks that are NOT politically independent, it is usually far costlier to reduce inflation. A very worthwhile reform, therefore, would be for governments to give their central banks independence. * The natural rate of unemployment is assumed to be 6.0% during the early 1980s. * * The natural rate hypothesis allows us to study the long run separately from the short run. * * * * * * Rational expectations Ways of modeling the formation of expectations: a