IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/compec/v53y2019i1d10.1007_s10614-017-9729-x.html

A Stochastic Model with Inflation, Growth and Technology for the Political Business Cycle

Author

Listed:
  • Gopal K. Basak

    (Indian Statistical Institute)

  • Mrinal K. Ghosh

    (Indian Institute of Science)

  • Diganta Mukherjee

    (Indian Statistical Institute)

Abstract

This paper analyzes an augmented political business cycle model taking into account the effect of employment creation decisions by the ruling party jointly on inflation and growth. The objective is to maximize voter support in the next election that depends on the rate of unemployment as well as that of growth and inflation. We allow for stochasticity in the New Keynesian Phillips Curve model for the relationship between inflation and unemployment as well as in a benchmark labour productivity function for analyzing the growth rate. We provide explicit solution paths of the affine Markov control problem that results from our formulation. We also provide numerical illustrations with plausible parametric configurations to generate more insight into our model. Our results are broadly in line with the conventional wisdom of Phillips curve, with inflation and unemployment being roughly negatively related. The growth rate is, as expected, negatively related to the unemployment. We observe that, in the sequel, it is the lowering of the rate of inflation that provides support for the ruling party. Thus, electoral pressures drive the government to engage in cost control rather than productive investment (e.g., boosting employment or output growth).

Suggested Citation

  • Gopal K. Basak & Mrinal K. Ghosh & Diganta Mukherjee, 2019. "A Stochastic Model with Inflation, Growth and Technology for the Political Business Cycle," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 53(1), pages 125-140, January.
  • Handle: RePEc:kap:compec:v:53:y:2019:i:1:d:10.1007_s10614-017-9729-x
    DOI: 10.1007/s10614-017-9729-x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10614-017-9729-x
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10614-017-9729-x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Findley, T. Scott, 2015. "Hyperbolic memory discounting and the political business cycle," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 40(PB), pages 345-359.
    2. Galí, Jordi & Gertler, Mark, 1999. "Inflation Dynamics: A Structural Economic Analysis," CEPR Discussion Papers 2246, Centre for Economic Policy Research.
    3. Michael Kiley, 2016. "Policy Paradoxes in the New-Keynesian Model," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 21, pages 1-15, July.
    4. Castro, Vitor & Veiga, Francisco Jose, 2004. "Political business cycles and inflation stabilization," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 83(1), pages 1-6, April.
    5. Gali, Jordi & Gertler, Mark, 1999. "Inflation dynamics: A structural econometric analysis," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(2), pages 195-222, October.
    6. Frank Smets & Rafael Wouters, 2007. "Shocks and Frictions in US Business Cycles: A Bayesian DSGE Approach," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(3), pages 586-606, June.
    7. Lawrence J. Christiano & Martin Eichenbaum & Charles L. Evans, 2005. "Nominal Rigidities and the Dynamic Effects of a Shock to Monetary Policy," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 113(1), pages 1-45, February.
    8. Aisen, Ari & Veiga, Francisco José, 2013. "How does political instability affect economic growth?," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 151-167.
    9. Fabio Milani, 2010. "Political Business Cycles In The New Keynesian Model," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 48(4), pages 896-915, October.
    10. Yi Feng, 2005. "Democracy, Governance, and Economic Performance: Theory and Evidence," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262562111, December.
    11. Olivier Blanchard & Jordi Galí, 2007. "Real Wage Rigidities and the New Keynesian Model," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 39(s1), pages 35-65, February.
    12. William D. Nordhaus, 1975. "The Political Business Cycle," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 42(2), pages 169-190.
    13. Frank Smets & Raf Wouters, 2003. "An Estimated Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium Model of the Euro Area," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 1(5), pages 1123-1175, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Igor Vetlov & Tibor Hlédik & Magnus Jonsson & Henrik Kucsera & Massimiliano Pisani, 2011. "Potential Output in DSGE Models," Bank of Lithuania Working Paper Series 9, Bank of Lithuania.
    2. Taylor, J.B., 2016. "The Staying Power of Staggered Wage and Price Setting Models in Macroeconomics," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & Harald Uhlig (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 2009-2042, Elsevier.
    3. David Gbaguidi, 2012. "La courbe de Phillips : temps d’arbitrage et/ou arbitrage de temps," L'Actualité Economique, Société Canadienne de Science Economique, vol. 88(1), pages 87-119.
    4. Luca Benati, 2008. "Investigating Inflation Persistence Across Monetary Regimes," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 123(3), pages 1005-1060.
    5. Jordi Galí, 2011. "The Return Of The Wage Phillips Curve," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 9(3), pages 436-461, June.
    6. Givens, Gregory E., 2016. "On the gains from monetary policy commitment under deep habits," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 19-36.
    7. Carlos Medel, 2017. "Forecasting Chilean inflation with the hybrid new keynesian Phillips curve: globalisation, combination, and accuracy," Journal Econom a Chilena (The Chilean Economy), Central Bank of Chile, vol. 20(3), pages 004-050, December.
    8. Drissi, Ramzi & Ghassan, Hassan B., 2018. "Sticky Price versus Sticky Information Price: Empirical Evidence in the New Keynesian Setting," MPRA Paper 93075, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised Apr 2019.
    9. Georgios Palaiodimos & Dimitris Papageorgiou, 2025. "VAT rate shocks and inflation: a theoretical and empirical analysis for Greece," Economic Bulletin, Bank of Greece, issue 61, pages 7-32, July.
    10. Andrew Hodge & Zoltan Jakab & Jesper Lindé & Vina Nguyen, 2022. "U.S. and Euro Area Monetary and Fiscal Interactions During the Pandemic: A Structural Analysis," IMF Working Papers 2022/222, International Monetary Fund.
    11. Wieland, Volker & Cwik, Tobias & Müller, Gernot J. & Schmidt, Sebastian & Wolters, Maik, 2012. "A new comparative approach to macroeconomic modeling and policy analysis," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 83(3), pages 523-541.
    12. Marco Di Pietro & Enrico Saltari, 2018. "Economic Fluctuations in the U.S. and Euro Area: Quantifying the Contribution of Technical Change," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 85(1), pages 203-216, July.
    13. Roccazzella, Francesco, 2019. "Credit market frictions and rational agents' myopia: Modeling financial frictions and shock to expectations in a DSGE setting estimated on Slovenian data," LIDAM Discussion Papers LFIN 2019004, Université catholique de Louvain, Louvain Finance (LFIN).
    14. Jae Won Lee, 2012. "Aggregate Implications of Heterogeneous Households in a Sticky-Price Model," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 44(1), pages 1-22, February.
    15. Moura, Guilherme Valle, 2015. "Multiplicadores Fiscais e Investimento em Infraestrutura," Revista Brasileira de Economia - RBE, EPGE Brazilian School of Economics and Finance - FGV EPGE (Brazil), vol. 69(1), March.
    16. Hasui, Kohei & Teranishi, Yuki, 2025. "Optimal monetary policy in a liquidity trap: Evaluations for Japan’s monetary policy," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    17. Madeira, João, 2015. "Firm-specific capital, inflation persistence and the sources of business cycles," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 229-243.
    18. Morris, Stephen D., 2017. "DSGE pileups," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 56-86.
    19. Thorvardur Tjörvi Ólafsson, 2006. "The New Keynesian Phillips Curve: In Search of Improvements and Adaptation to the Open Economy," Economics wp31_tjorvi, Department of Economics, Central bank of Iceland.
    20. Giovanni Nicolo, 2020. "Monetary Policy, Self-Fulfilling Expectations and the U.S. Business Cycle," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2020-035, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • C63 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Mathematical Methods; Programming Models; Mathematical and Simulation Modeling - - - Computational Techniques
    • P16 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Capitalist Economies - - - Capitalist Institutions; Welfare State

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:kap:compec:v:53:y:2019:i:1:d:10.1007_s10614-017-9729-x. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.