Energy price shocks, unemployment, and monetary policy

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Gnocato, Nicolo
• 署名单位: European Central Bank; Bank of Italy
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF MONETARY ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0304-3932
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jmoneco.2025.103734
• 发表日期: 2025
• 关键词: Heterogeneous agents; New Keynesian; Unemployment risk; Energy shocks; optimal monetary policy; Endogenous trade-off

摘要

Does monetary policy face a trade-off between stabilizing inflation and unemployment as soaring energy prices hit the unemployed harder than the employed? Data from the euroarea Consumer Expectations Survey show that job losses not only force workers to lower their consumption but also to devote a higher proportion of it to energy. I incorporate this evidence into a tractable heterogeneous-agent New Keynesian model with labor market frictions, where energy acts as both a complementary input in production and a non-homothetic consumption good. Unemployment forces workers to consume less due to imperfect insurance and, since preferences are non-homothetic, to allocate a larger consumption share to energy. The heterogeneous exposure of the labor force to rising energy prices induces an endogenous trade-off for monetary policy: the optimal response involves partly accommodating inflation to limit the increase in unemployment and, hence, prevent workers from becoming more exposed to the shock.