Persistence of Shocks in an Experimental Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium Economy

We design experimental economies based on a New Keynesian Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium (DSGE) model. We apply shocks to tastes, productivity, and interest rate policy, and measure the persistence of these shocks. We find that, in a setting where goods are perfect substitutes, there is little persistence of output shocks compared to treatments with monopolistic competition, which perform similarly irrespective of whether or not menu costs are present. Discretionary central banking is associated with greater persistence than automated instrumental rules.