Alistair Macaulay

Dr Alistair Macaulay


Surrey Future Fellow
PhD Economics

Academic and research departments

School of Economics, Macroeconomics Group.

About

Publications

Martin Ellison, Alistair Macaulay (2021)A rational inattention unemployment trap, In: Journal of economic dynamics & control131 Elsevier B.V

We show that introducing rational inattention into a model with uninsurable unemployment risk can generate multiple steady states, when the model with full information has a unique steady state. The model features persistent, heterogeneous labour market expectations, consistent with survey evidence. In a heterogeneous agent New Keynesian model, rational inattention to the future hiring rate generates three steady states: an unemployment trap with mild deflation and a low (but positive) job hiring rate, a middle steady state with moderate employment and inflation, and an ‘employment trap’ with high employment and inflation. Large mutations in the distribution of household beliefs can shift the economy between steady states.