Imperfect Information, Real-Time Data and Monetary Policy in the Euro Area

An important concern for the European Central Bank (ECB), and all central banks alike, is the necessity of making decisions in real-time under conditions of great uncertainty about the underlying state of the economy. We address this concern by estimating on real-time data a New Keynesian model for the euro area under the assumption of imperfect information. In comparison to models that maintain the assumption of perfect information and are estimated on ex-post revised, we find that: (i) the estimated policy rule becomes more inertial and less aggressive towards inflation; (ii) the ECB faces a more severe trade-off in the stabilisation of inflation and the output gap.