Working Paper Series no. 104: Evaluating the Fit of Sticky Price Models

Abstract

We examine the effects of introducing investment adjustment costs, variable capital utilization, indivisible labor, and material goods into a sticky price model subject to a cash-in-advance constraint. Combining these elements, the model overcomes the main criticisms traditionally addressed to this class of models. Under Watson (1993) goodness-of-fit criterion, the model does a very good job at replicating the dynamics of output, hours and investment. However, this framework dramatically fails at reproducing the spectrum of inflation. This unfortunate conclusion is robust to numerous alternative specifications.

Julien Matheron and Tristan-Pierre Maury
January 2004