From the Great Inflation to the Great Moderation: Assessing the Roles of Firm-Specific Labor, Sticky Prices and Labor Supply Shocks

Abstract

We develop and estimate a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model that features sticky prices, a variable elasticity of demand facing firms and firm-specific labor. While reconciling to a good extent the micro and macro evidence on the behavior of prices, the model offers an accurate account of the dramatic increase in macroeconomic stability from the Great Inflation (1948:1-1979:II) to the Great Moderation (1984:I-2006:II). Reminiscent of the evidence in Shapiro and Watson (1988), the paper shows that labor-supply shocks are the key source of the reduction in the volatility of output growth, followed by investment-specific shocks. However, changes in the behavior of the private sector, a less accommodative monetary policy and smaller shocks explain almost evenly the large decline of the variability in inflation.