Sluggish Price Adjustments and the Effectiveness of Monetary Policy Under Rational Expectations: Reply
回应Frydman的批评，指出价格粘性本身并不否定卢卡斯-萨金特命题，并在预设价格模型中证明该命题成立，且该模型能解释经济周期事实。
Section 1 of Frydman's note [1] offers a worthwhile criticism of the models used in my papers [3] and [4], namely, that they assume inventory-output relationships that are somewhat implausible. But this criticism is insufficient to overturn my basic claim, which is that the Lucas-Sargent (LSP) is not automatically negated by the existence of price level stickiness. In fact, the validity of this claim has recently been demonstrated in a framework that is not open to Frydman's objections and in which prices are sticky in a stronger sense than in the models of [3] and [4]. More specifically, it is shown in [6] that the LSP holds in a model1 in which prices are set in advance of the period in which they prevail, so that the price level fails entirely to respond to current conditions of excess supply or demand. Since these prices are preset by rational agents whose expectations for a period are based on observations of relevant variables up through the previous period, and since no additional information is available to the monetary authority,2 the output effects of systematic policy actions can be precisely offset by the price setting behavior of the private agents. Furthermore, it is argued in [7] that the assumed behavior will be optimal for these agents in particular, for worker-firm combinations when prices must be preset, and it is shown that the model is consistent with several of the more prominent facts of business cycle experience. Consequently, [1] provides no reason to alter my previous conclusion that the recognition of price level stickiness does not, in and of itself, negate the Lucas-Sargent Proposition [3, p. 633]. Frydman's section 2 is concerned with my paper [S] on the relationship between oligopolistic pricing behavior as represented in the MPS econometric model-and the LSP. Frydman contends that unless we are willing to assume that markup pricing and sluggish adjustments always result in the market clearing prices, McCallum's analysis is inconsistent with oligopolistic pricing behavior and is irrelevant