January 2001

NAIRU Uncertainty and Nonlinear Policy Rules

Laurence H. Meyer, Eric T. Swanson, and Volker W. Wieland

Abstract:

Meyer (1999) has suggested that episodes of heightened uncertainty about the NAIRU may warrant a nonlinear policy response to changes in the unemployment rate. This paper offers a theoretical justification for such a nonlinear policy rule, and provides some empirical evidence on the relative performance of linear and nonlinear rules when there is heightened uncertainty about the NAIRU.

Keywords: Simple nonlinear policy rule, signal extraction with non-normal prior, nonlinear updating

PDF: Full Paper

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Last Update: January 29, 2021