Why Inflation Rose and Fell: Policy-Makers' Beliefs and U. S. Postwar Stabilization Policy*
用一个模型解释美国1960-70年代通胀上升和1980年代初快速下降，模型假设政策制定者实时学习经济并优化政策，低估自然失业率和通胀持续性会导致高通胀，估计结果很好地拟合了战后美国通胀和失业的演变。
This paper provides an explanation for the run-up of U. S. inflation in the 1960s and 1970s and the sharp disinflation in the early 1980s, which standard macroeconomic models have difficulties in addressing. I present a model in which rational policy-makers learn about the behavior of the economy in real time and set stabilization policy optimally, conditional on their current beliefs. The steady state associated with the self-confirming equilibrium of the model is characterized by low inflation. However, prolonged episodes of high inflation ending with rapid disinflations can occur when policy-makers underestimate both the natural rate of unemployment and the persistence of inflation in the Phillips curve. I estimate the model using likelihood methods. The estimation results show that the model accounts remarkably well for the evolution of policy-makers' beliefs, stabilization policy, and the postwar behavior of inflation and unemployment in the United States.