Macroeconomists failed to predict the Great Recession, suggesting that the existing macroeconomic models may have been misspecified. Bearing in mind this potential misspecification or “model uncertainty,” how do agents’ optimal decisions change? Furthermore, how large are the welfare costs of model misspecification? To shed light on these questions, we develop a tractable continuous-time general equilibrium model to show that a fear of model misspecification reduces both the equilibrium interest rate and the relative inequality of consumption to income, making the model’s predictions closer to the data. Our quantitative analysis shows that the welfare costs of model uncertainty are sizable.
Prof. Yulei LUO
Economics
Deputy Area Head of Economics
Professor
3910 3108
KK 733
Publications
1Nov
1 Nov 2020
The Economic Journal