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Business cycle fluctuations and monetary policy under heterogeneous information: A literature review

23 October 2025
Romain Baeriswyl
Pierrick Clerc
Camille Cornand
Issue 2025-16

Summary

Modelling business cycle fluctuations and the nonneutrality of money is an ongoing challenge for macroeconomists. While the imperfect-information hypothesis developed by Phelps and Lucas in the 1970s had been abandoned in favour of the sticky-price hypothesis, a recent trend in the literature has put the imperfect-information hypothesis back on the agenda to explain business fluctuations and monetary nonneutrality. The success of this revival lies in the introduction of strategic uncertainty into a framework of heterogeneous information. The present paper presents this macroeconomic framework and provides a brief overview of recent advances in the literature.

Issue:
16
Pages:
30
JEL classification:
C72, D83, E12, E32, E52
Keywords:
Heterogeneous information, Strategic complementarities, Higher-order beliefs, Coordination, Beauty-contest, Monetary nonneutrality, Business cycle, Communication policy, Monetary policy
Year:
2025

Author(s)

  • Romain Baeriswyl

  • Pierrick Clerc

  • Camille Cornand

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