Understanding changes in exchange rate pass-through

Recent research suggests that there has been a decline in the extent to which firms “pass-through” changes in exchange rates to prices. This paper provides further evidence in support of this claim. Additionally, it proposes an explanation for this phenomenon. The paper then presents empirical evidence of a structural break during the 1990s in the relationship between the real exchange rate and CPI inflation for a set of fourteen OECD countries. It is suggested that the recent reduction in the real exchange rate pass-through can in part be attributed to the low inflationary environment of the 1990s.     

The optimal neglect of inflation: An alternative interpretation of UK monetary policy during the “Great Moderation”

This paper argues that UK monetary policymakers did not respond to the inflation rate during most of the “Great Moderation” that ran from the early 1990s to the mid-2000s. We derive a generalisation of the New Keynesian Phillips curve in which inflation is a non-linear function of the output gap and show that the optimal response of the policy rule to inflation depends on the slope of the Phillips curve; if this is flat, manipulation of aggregate demand through monetary policy does not affect inflation and so policymakers cannot affect inflation. We estimate the monetary policy rules implied by a variety of alternative Phillips curves; our preferred model is based on a Phillips curve that is flat when output is close to equilibrium. We find that policy rates do not respond to inflation when the output gap is small, a situation that characterised most of the “Great Moderation” period.     

Global slack and domestic inflation rates: A structural investigation for G-7 countries

Recent papers have argued that one implication of globalization is that domestic inflation rates may have now become more a function of “global”, rather than domestic, economic conditions, as postulated by closed-economy Phillips curves.This paper aims to assess the empirical importance of global output in determining domestic inflation rates by estimating a structural model for a sample of G-7 economies. The model can capture the potential effects of global output fluctuations on both the aggregate supply and the aggregate demand relations in the economy and it is estimated using full-information Bayesian methods.The empirical results reveal a significant effect of global output on aggregate demand in most countries. Through this channel, global economic conditions can indirectly affect inflation. The results, instead, do not seem to provide evidence in favor of altering domestic Phillips curves to include global slack as an additional driving variable for inflation.     

Stabilizations, crises and the “exit” problem – A theoretical model

Exchange-rate-based stabilizations, even if successful, usually lack credibility initially. This is reflected in high (ex post) real interest rates and some degree of real exchange rate appreciation. Empirical observation suggests that wage inflation declines smoothly over time whilst interest rates are volatile. Our model captures these features and provides insights into: the eruption of exchange rate crises after a long period of apparently successful stabilization; the potential advantages of a heterodox approach; when to delay a stabilization attempt; and the optimal date for “exit” to a floating exchange rate.     

Stock prices, inflation and output: Evidence from wavelet analysis

The negative relationship between real stock return and inflation puzzled many as it contradicts conventional Fisherian wisdom. Fama [Fama, E.F. (1981), “Stock returns, real activity, inflation and money”, American Economic Review, 71(September), 545–564.] gave an explanation for this negative relationship with two propositions that links real stock return and inflation through real output. This study revisits Fama's hypothesis for India in the post-liberalized period from a developing country perspective. Examining this relationship on the time-scale decomposition from a wavelet multi-resolution analysis suggests that Fama's hypothesis holds only for the long time scale and remains as a puzzle for the other time scales.     

Inflation indexed bonds and monetary theory

Summary. The introduction of inflation indexed bonds, or “tips” - treasury inflation protected securities, provides important new data for analyzing the state of the economy and for assessing the validity and significance of macroeconomic theories. This note will show that tip yields contain information for predicting real variables. Furthermore, the inclusion of tip yields supersedes the role of nominal variables - both the ten year nominal bond and fed funds rate - for incrementally predicting (Granger causing) real variables. The data support the notion of block exogeneity - the lack of feedback from nominal to real variables. This result would appear to be inconsistent with the idea that monetary policy, as implemented through changes in the fed funds rate, has had measurable real effects over this, admittedly brief, sample (See for example Christiano, Eichenbaum, and Evans (1998) who argue that the impulse response functions to fed fund shocks can be used to estimate the response to unanticipated policy shocks. However they find that these have not been a major source of output fluctuations. The present study implies that such inferences are not robust to the introduction of tip yields). Received: 7 August 2004, Revised: 19 December 2004 JEL Classification Numbers: E01, E04, E05.Laurence Weiss: I thank Bob Litterman and Bob Lucas for discussion and inspiration.     

Perpetual youth and endogenous labor supply: A problem and a possible solution

In the “perpetual youth” overlapping-generations model of Blanchard and Yaari, if leisure is a “normal” good then some agents will have negative labor supply. We suggest a solution to this problem by using a modified version of Greenwood, Hercowitz and Huffman’s utility function. The modification incorporates real money balances, so that the model may be used to analyze monetary as well as fiscal policy. In a Walrasian version of the economy, we show that increased government debt and increased government spending raise the interest rate and lower output, while an open-market operation to increase the money supply lowers the interest rate and raises output.     

The inflationary bias of real uncertainty and the harmonic Fisher equation

Summary. We argue that real uncertainty itself causes long-run nominal inflation. Consider an infinite horizon cash-in-advance economy with a representative agent and real uncertainty, modeled by independent, identically distributed endowments. Suppose the central bank fixes the nominal rate of interest. We show that the equilibrium long-run rate of inflation is strictly higher, on almost every path of endowment realizations, than it would be if the endowments were constant.Indeed, we present an explicit formula for the long-run rate of inflation, based on the famous Fisher equation. The Fisher equation says the short-run rate of inflation should equal the nominal rate of interest less the real rate of interest. The long-run Fisher equation for our stochastic economy is similar, but with the rate of inflation replaced by the harmonic mean of the growth rate of money.Received: 25 February 2005, Revised: 26 May 2005, JEL Classification Numbers: C7, C73, D81, E41, E58.An earlier version of this paper “Inflationary Bias in a Simple Stochastic Economy,” as a 2001 Cowles Foundation Discussion Paper No. 1333.     

Interest rate rules, inflation and the Taylor principle: an analytical exploration

Summary. The purpose of this article is to characterize optimal interest rate rules in the framework of a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model, and notably to scrutinize the “Taylor principle”, according to which the nominal interest rate should respond more than one for one to inflation. This model yields explicit solutions for the optimal rule. We find that the elasticity of response depends on numerous factors, such as the degree of price rigidity, the autocorrelation of the underlying shocks, or which measure of inflation is used. In general the optimal elasticity of the interest rate with respect to inflation needs not be greater than one.Received: 6 November 2003, Revised: 17 August 2004 JEL Classification Numbers: E5, E52, E58.J.-P. Bénassy: I wish to thank Daniel Laskar and an anonymous referee for their perceptive comments on earlier drafts of this paper. Of course all remaining deficiencies are mine.     

Nexus between economic sanctions and inflation: a case study in Iran

Conventional studies have applied dummy variables to analyse the relationship between economic sanctions and inflation while we construct an index which is called Trade-Financial Sanctions (TF index). TF Index is a liner combination of indices which includes trade openness and foreign investment by applying the principal component model. Through the TF index and market exchange rate the impact of economic sanctions on inflation is analysed in the three phases of sanctions; free sanctions, heavy sanctions, and light sanctions. The results illustrate that the TF index decreases inflation when the Iran’s economy experiences free sanctions or light sanctions relative to when the economy is in heavy sanctions. Heavy sanctions create instability in the market exchange rates and widening the gap between the market and the official exchange rates. Furthermore, economic sanctions increase expected inflation among the people and drive higher inflation. Therefore, these results suggest that the government should work more seriously to solve the main obstacles of trade and investment inflows imposed by the economic sanctions.     

Government spending, capital accumulation and the optimal policy rule: The role of public service capital

In this paper, we modify the Djajić [Djajić, S., 1987. “Government Spending and the Optimal Rates of Consumption and Capital Accumulation,” Canadian Journal of Economics 20, 544–554.] model in such a way that government consumption expenditure provides utility to households via the total stock of government services rather than the government consumption flow alone. By using such a framework, we show that the optimality condition for the public service capital stock is the marginal rate of substitution between public service capital and consumption that equals the intertemporal marginal rate of transformation between the two goods. In addition, we show that the relationship between private consumption and public service capital in a household's utility plays an important role in determining the transitional behavior of relevant variables. We also examine the second-best government consumption expenditure policy. By contrast, in the standard flow specification, e.g., Turnovsky and Brock [Turnovsky, S.J. and Brock, W.A., 1980. “Time Consistency and Optimal Government Policies in Perfect Foresight Equilibrium,” Journal of Public Economics 13, 183–212.], Ihori [Ihori, T., 1990. “Government Spending and Private Consumption,” Canadian Journal of Economics 23, 60–69.], and Turnovsky and Fisher [Turnovsky, S.J. and Fisher, W.H., 1995. “The Composition of Government Expenditure and its Consequences for Macroeconomic Performance,” Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control 19, 747–786.], the second-best government consumption expenditure is decided on the basis that the marginal utility of consumption is equal to the discounted sum of the marginal utility of the government's flow spending.     

Domestic and global output gaps as inflation drivers: What does the Phillips curve tell?

We study how domestic and global output gaps affect CPI inflation. We use a New-Keynesian Phillips curve framework which controls for non-linear exchange rate movements for a panel of 26 advanced and 22 emerging economies covering the 1994Q1−2017Q4 period. We find that both global and domestic output gaps are significant drivers of inflation both in the pre-crisis (1994–2008) and post-crisis (2008–2017) periods. Furthermore, after the crisis, in advanced economies the effect of the domestic output gap declines, while in emerging economies the effect of the global output gap declines. Our results suggest that emerging and advanced economies have become more similar to each other in terms of output gaps as inflation drivers. The paper demonstrates the usefulness of the New Keynesian Phillips curve in identifying the impact of global and domestic output gaps on inflation.     

The impact of fiscal-monetary policy interactions on government size and macroeconomic performance

This paper analyzes the relationship between inflation, output and government size by reexamining the time inconsistency of optimal monetary and fiscal policies in a general equilibrium model with staggered timing structure for the acquisition of nominal money à la Neiss (Neiss, Katharine S. (1999), Discretionary Inflation in a General Equilibrium Model, Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, 31(3), pp. 357–374.), and public expenditure financed by means of a distortive tax. It is shown that, with predetermined wages, the equilibrium rate of inflation is above the Friedman rule and the equilibrium tax rate is below the efficient level. In particular, the discretionary rate of inflation is nonmonotonically related to the natural output, positively related to government size, and negatively related to the degree of central bank conservatism. Finally, a regime with commitment leads to welfare improvements over a regime with discretion.     

通货膨胀实时预测及菲利普斯曲线的适用性

本文从实时分析的视角,基于多种退势方法的产出缺口最终估计、准最终估计和实时估计序列,分别构建了四类预测模型对我国通货膨胀率进行预测,分析了产出缺口修正效应和滞后阶数变化效应对通胀预测的影响,并进一步考察了产出缺口在通胀预测中的作用及菲利普斯曲线在通胀预测中的适用性。研究结论表明,通胀率的实时预测效果要明显比基于最终数据的差,其中滞后阶数变化效应对实时预测精度的影响大于产出缺口修正效应;尤为重要的是,尽管在最终数据的预测分析中,产出缺口的引入能够提高通胀率的预测精度,但是在实时预测中,产出缺口没有提供有价值的信息,因此"产出—通胀"型菲利普斯曲线在我国通胀实时预测中并不适用。     

The relationship between inflation and its variability: International evidence from the 1970s

This paper reexamines the empirical relationship between the average level of inflation and its variability. Based on a sample of 40 diverse economies, our results suggest that no one group of countries was able to avoid the decreased inflation predictability associated with higher levels of inflation during the 1970s. In contrast, previous research showed that Highly Industrialized countries, as a group, were able to control inflation variability during the period 1950–1970. Our results also suggest that the “threshold” level of inflation appears to have risen substantially during the 1970s. Whereas previous research suggested an upper bound of the threshold at about a four percent rate of inflation, the evidence from the 1970s indicates that the threshold may have risen to about a nine percent inflation rate.     

产出缺口与中国地区通货膨胀

借鉴开放经济条件下新凯恩斯混合菲利普斯曲线,采用中国省际面板数据,构建一个包含本地区产出缺口、国内其他地区产出缺口和国外产出缺口的三缺口通货膨胀模型,实证分析产出缺口对中国地区通货膨胀的影响,同时分东部和中西部考察区域差异。实证研究结论表明,国内外产出缺口显著影响我国地区通货膨胀。较之中西部地区更多受到国内产出缺口的影响,东部地区则更多受到国外产出缺口的冲击。而且,国内地区间的通货膨胀压力传导在东部地区较中西部更明显。另外,政府的反需求管理措施存在时滞,且政策调控主要降低了本地区产出缺口形成的通货膨胀压力。     

Increased price flexibility and output stability

Simulation results of previous authors show an ambiguous effect of increased price flexibility on output stability in models incorporating a Mundell inflation effect on aggregate demand. This paper interprets their results in an analytically tractable model with imperfect, goods-market competition. To be destabilizing, increased flexibility must increase the “hump” of the price level's response to demand shocks. Output variability is always reduced by increasing the size of the flex-price sector and sometimes reduced by shortening contract lengths in the fix-price sector.     

The economics of shortage and problems of reform in Chinese industry

This paper employs the economics of shortage framework to examine post-Mao reforms in Chinese state-owned industry. Performance has been disappointing because reforms through 1985 failed to fundamentally alter economic agent behavior. The “soft” budget constraints at the enterprise and local government levels continue to generate “quantity” and “expansion” drives. The resultant inflationary pressures have necessitated administrative interventions and thwarted reform progress. The Maoist legacy of active participation by local governments in economic management is high-lighted as a major obstacle to the elimination of paternalism in state-enterprise relations.     

Money, endogenous fertility and economic growth

This paper analyzes the issue of money superneutrality through an intertemporal optimizing model of capital accumulation with endogenous fertility, i.e. endogenous population growth. Two elements of this setup invalidate money superneutrality: (i) a demand for fertility that depends on real money balances, and (ii) an inverse relation between capital–labor ratio and population growth. Higher monetary growth increases fertility, since it reduces its opportunity cost, and hence diminishes capital intensity, and per capita output. This reverse Tobin effect is matched by an increase in aggregate capital and output growth rates. In this framework, the optimal monetary growth rule is a “distorted Friedman rule”.     

The ghost of financing gap: testing the growth model used in the international financial institutions

The Harrod–Domar growth model supposedly died long ago. Still today, economists in the international financial institutions (IFIs) apply the Harrod–Domar model to calculate short-run investment requirements for a target growth rate. They then calculate a “financing gap” between the required investment and available resources and often fill the “financing gap” with foreign aid. The financing gap model has two simple predictions: (1) aid will go into investment one for one, and (2) there will be a fixed linear relationship between growth and investment in the short run. The data soundly reject these two predictions of the financing gap model.