Microeconomic Heterogeneity and Macroeconomic Shocks
综述了结合异质性主体与新凯恩斯刚性的HANK模型，说明其比传统代表性主体模型更准确刻画家庭消费行为，并揭示异质性对宏观经济冲击传导的关键影响。
In this essay, we discuss the emerging literature in macroeconomics that combines heterogeneous agent models, nominal rigidities, and aggregate shocks. This literature opens the door to the analysis of distributional issues, economic fluctuations, and stabilization policies—all within the same framework. In response to the limitations of the representative agent approach to economic fluctuations, a new framework has emerged that combines key features of heterogeneous agents (HA) and New Keynesian (NK) economies. These HANK models offer a much more accurate representation of household consumption behavior and can generate realistic distributions of income, wealth, and, albeit to a lesser degree, household balance sheets. At the same time, they can accommodate many sources of macroeconomic fluctuations, including those driven by aggregate demand. In sum, they provide a rich theoretical framework for quantitative analysis of the interaction between cross-sectional distributions and aggregate dynamics. In this article, we outline a state-of-the-art version of HANK together with its representative agent counterpart, and convey two broad messages about the role of household heterogeneity for the response of the macroeconomy to aggregate shocks: 1) the similarity between the Representative Agent New Keynesian (RANK) and HANK frameworks depends crucially on the shock being analyzed; and 2) certain important macroeconomic questions concerning economic fluctuations can only be addressed within heterogeneous agent models.