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Suppose Suppose the New Zealand economy is in recession. The unemployment rate is 7% and the Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ) is considering
Suppose Suppose the New Zealand economy is in recession. The unemployment rate is 7% and the Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ) is considering using monetary policy to expand output. Assume the RBNZ knows, with certainty, that: (i) absent changes in monetary policy, unemployment will still be 7% next year; (ii) the natural rate of unemployment is 5%; (iii) from Okun's law, 1% more output growth for a year leads to a 0.4% reduction in the unemployment rate. Also assume the RBNZ can effectively use monetary policy to increase output growth rates as desired, i.e., the interest rate is sufficiently far away from the zero lower bound. However, the RBNZ is uncertain about the effect that changes in its policy rate, the Official Cash Rate (OCR), have on output growth. To inform its decisions, the monetary policy committee summons the research department to produce predictions of the one-year response of NZ output growth to a decrease of 1% in the OCR. The research department, using three different macroeconometric models, presents the following results: Model (a): output growth is predicted to increase by 1.0% (moderate monetary transmission channel); Model (b): output growth is predicted to increase by 0.6% (weak monetary transmission channel); Model (c): output growth is predicted to increase by 2% (strong monetary transmission channel). The research department further informs that each model prediction is equally likely, and that effects for OCR changes different than -1% are proportional to these predictions, e.g.: a decrease of 2% in the OCR is predicted to increase output growth by 2% according to model (a), 1.2% according to model (b), and 4% according to model (c), and so on.
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