Commodity-price volatility and macroeconomic spillovers: Evidence from nine emerging markets

The recent decade has witnessed wild swings in global commodity prices, with large increases preceding the Global Financial Crisis and steep declines following the crash. Many emerging markets find themselves destabilized by these fluctuations, not only when price increases lead to currency appreciations and reduced competitiveness, but also when price decreases cause capital outflows and deteriorations in the balance of payments. This study examines the volatility processes of six major commodity prices, before applying Multivariate GARCH analysis to examine spillovers among important commodity prices and output, exchange rates, interest rates and inflation in major emerging markets. While each commodity and each country behaves differently, we find that Chile is most closely tied to the copper price, and Indonesia to oil and tin, while neighbors such as Brazil and the Philippines are less affected. Perhaps surprisingly, Russia is found to be highly insulated from fluctuations in world oil prices.     

What determines the long-term correlation between oil prices and exchange rates?

In this study, we obtain the long-term correlation between oil prices and exchange rates by employing the dynamic conditional correlation-mixed data sampling (DCC-MIDAS) model. We then identify the factors that influence the long-term correlation using panel data analysis. We find that the long-run correlations between oil prices and exchange rates are negative for all oil-exchange rate markets except Japan. We also find that both inflation and term spread have negative effects, while the risk-free interest rate has a positive effect on the long-term correlation between oil prices and exchange rates. Importantly, the empirical results show that an increase in inflation will significantly damage the real value of the currency itself.     

The Impact of the 2008 Crisis on UK Prices: What We Can Learn from the CPI Microdata1

This paper takes the locally collected price quotes used to construct the CPI index in the UK for the period 1996–2013 and explores the impact of the Great Recession (2008‐9) on the pricing behaviour of firms. We develop a time series framework which captures the link between macroeconomic variables and the behaviour of prices in terms of the frequency of price change, the dispersion of price levels and the size, dispersion and kurtosis of price‐growth. We find strong evidence for inflation having an effect, but not output. The change in the behaviour of prices during the Great Recession is largely explained by the changes in inflation and VAT. Nevertheless, the magnitude of the inflation effect is sufficiently small that it need not influence monetary policy.     

The Impact of the 2008 Crisis on UK Prices: What We Can Learn from the CPI Microdata1

This paper takes the locally collected price quotes used to construct the CPI index in the UK for the period 1996–2013 and explores the impact of the Great Recession (2008-9) on the pricing behaviour of firms. We develop a time series framework which captures the link between macroeconomic variables and the behaviour of prices in terms of the frequency of price change, the dispersion of price levels and the size, dispersion and kurtosis of price-growth. We find strong evidence for inflation having an effect, but not output. The change in the behaviour of prices during the Great Recession is largely explained by the changes in inflation and VAT. Nevertheless, the magnitude of the inflation effect is sufficiently small that it need not influence monetary policy.     

Monetary effects on nominal oil prices

The paper presents a theory of nominal asset prices for competitively owned oil. Focusing on monetary effects, with flexible oil prices the US dollar oil price should follow the aggregate US price level. But with rigid nominal oil prices, the nominal oil price jumps proportionally to nominal interest rate increases. We find evidence for structural breaks in the nominal oil price that are used to illustrate the theory of oil price jumps. The evidence also indicates strong Granger causality of the oil price by US inflation as is consistent with the theory.     

The Outlook for Wages

Price inflation is on the way down The most dramatic evidence of this is the fall in retail price inflation as the VAT effect comes out of the index. But as the Charts overleaf show, there are clear signs of a fall in inflation rates in wholesale output prices and, more strikingly still, in manufacturers' input prices.
This may be good news for consumers, but so far any reduction in inflation has been chiefly at the expense of profit margins as price rises have fallen below the increase in wage costs. The question for the immediate future is whether the fall in price inflation will now lead to a fall in wage inflation     

Monetary policy,housing rents,and inflation dynamics

In this paper we study the effect of monetary policy shocks on housing rents. Our main finding is that, in contrast to house prices, housing rents increase in response to contractionary monetary policy shocks. We also find that, after a contractionary monetary policy shock, rental vacancies and the homeownership rate decline. This combination of results suggests that monetary policy may affect housing tenure decisions (own versus rent). In addition, we show that, with the exception of the shelter component, all other main components of the consumer price index (CPI) either decline in response to a contractionary monetary policy shock or are not responsive. These findings motivated us to study the statistical properties of alternative measures of inflation that exclude the shelter component. We find that measures of inflation that exclude shelter have most of the statistical properties of the widely used measures of inflation, such as the CPI and the price index for personal consumption expenditures, but have higher standard deviations and react more to monetary policy shocks. Finally, we show that the response of housing rents accounts for a large proportion of the “price puzzle” found in the literature.     

Has the ECB increased interest rates too soon?

Even though the Eurozone recovery is far from entrenched, the ECB decided to raise interest rates towards the end of 2005 and another hike is expected soon. Those in the ECB who have been looking for a reason to start tightening for some time can point to an inflation rate that remains stubbornly above target as a justification. In this article we find that the price rises of non‐energy industrial goods ‐ particularly those for clothing and footwear ‐ have remained very sticky when compared to the deflation seen in countries like the UK. A lack of competitive forces may be an issue ‐ the impact of China and India on goods prices does not seem to be fully feeding through to consumers. And weak productivity in the distribution sector may have prevented retailers from driving down prices to the same extent as in the UK. Does the current ECB action form the start of a prolonged tightening cycle as seen in the US? Despite worries over asset price and credit growth ‐ and here we argue that the ECB's reliance on monetary aggregates as a signal of impending inflation is misguided ‐ there is a possibility that the ECB has acted at the same time that inflation is finally set to subside. Consequently, we expect a "wait and see" approach to further moves, and unless growth comes in much stronger than the 2.2% we expect in 2006, rates should end the year at around 2½%.     

Monetary policy with interest on reserves

I analyze monetary policy with interest on reserves and a large balance sheet. I show that conventional theories do not determine inflation in this regime, so I base the analysis on the fiscal theory of the price level. I find that monetary policy can peg the nominal rate, and determine expected inflation. With sticky prices, monetary policy can also affect real interest rates and output, though higher interest rates raise output and then inflation. The conventional sign requires a coordinated fiscal–monetary policy contraction. I show how conventional new-Keynesian models also imply strong monetary–fiscal policy coordination to obtain the usual signs. I address theoretical controversies. A concluding section places our current regime in a broader historical context, and opines on how optimal fiscal and monetary policy will evolve in the new regime.     

Do precious metal prices help in forecasting South African inflation?

In this paper we test whether the key metals prices of gold and platinum significantly improve inflation forecasts for the South African economy. We also test whether controlling for conditional correlations in a dynamic setup, using bivariate Bayesian-Dynamic Conditional Correlation (B-DCC) models, improves inflation forecasts. To achieve this we compare out-of-sample forecast estimates of the B-DCC model to Random Walk, Autoregressive and Bayesian VAR models. We find that for both the BVAR and BDCC models, improving point forecasts of the Autoregressive model of inflation remains an elusive exercise. This, we argue, is of less importance relative to the more informative density forecasts. For this we find improved forecasts of inflation for the B-DCC models at all forecasting horizons tested. We thus conclude that including metals price series as inputs to inflation models leads to improved density forecasts, while controlling for the dynamic relationship between the included price series and inflation similarly leads to significantly improved density forecasts.     

Oil price shocks and unemployment in Central and Eastern Europe

The aim of this paper is to examine the effect of oil price movements on unemployment in Central and Eastern Europe. We do this by disentangling oil prices movements by their sign and from there we analyse the separate effects of positive and negative movements of oil prices on unemployment rates. We find that, although oil prices and unemployment are not correlated very much in the short run, the effect of oil price shocks on the natural rate of unemployment goes in the same direction, so that increases or decreases in oil prices increase or decrease the natural rate of unemployment.     

Yield curve in an estimated nonlinear macro model

This paper estimates a sticky price macro model with US macro and term structure data using Bayesian methods. The model is solved by a nonlinear method. The posterior distribution of the parameters in the model is found to be bi-modal. The degree of nominal rigidity is high at one mode (“sticky price mode”) but is low at the other mode (“flexible price mode”). I find that the degree of nominal rigidity is important for identifying macro shocks that affect the yield curve. When prices are more flexible, a slowly varying inflation target of the central bank is the main driver of the overall level of the yield curve by changing long-run inflation expectations. In contrast, when prices are more sticky, a highly persistent markup shock is the main driver. The posterior probability of each mode is sensitive to the use of observed proxies for inflation expectations. Ignoring additional information from survey data on inflation expectations significantly reduces the posterior probability of the flexible price mode. Incorporating this additional information suggests that yield curve fluctuations can be better understood by focusing on the flexible price mode. Considering nonlinearities of the model solution also increases the posterior probability of the flexible price mode, although to a lesser degree than using survey data information.     

Inflation tax in the lab: a theoretical and experimental study of competitive search equilibrium with inflation

In this paper we measure the effect of the inflation tax on economic activity and welfare within a controlled setting. To do so, we develop a model of price posting and monetary exchange with inflation and finite populations. The model, which provides a game–theoretic foundation to Rocheteau and Wright (2005)׳s competitive search monetary equilibrium, is used to derive theoretical propositions regarding the effects of inflation in this environment, which we test with a laboratory experiment that closely implements the theoretical framework. We find that the inflation tax is harmful – with cash holdings, production and welfare all falling as inflation rises – and that its effect is relatively larger at low inflation rates than at higher rates. For instance, for inflation rates between 0% and 5%, welfare in the two markets we consider (2[seller]×2[buyer] and 3×2) falls by roughly 1 percent for each percentage–point rise in inflation, compared with 0.4 percent over the range from 5% to 30%. Our findings lead us to conclude that the impact of the inflation tax should not be underestimated, even under low inflation.     

WORLD OUTLOOK

World output, which was strengthening immediately prior to last October, appears to have barely suffered in the short term from the stock market crash. Apart from an early reaction by US consumers - since reversed - demand is proving robust and in early 1988 OECD industrial production is, we estimate, 6 per cent up on year-earlier levels, with GNP more than 4 per cent higher. Indeed such is the strength of activity that the present balance of risk is not that recession is imminent but that inflation may pick up again. In the United States, where activity rates are at their highest level for eight years and unemployment is at a fourteen-year low, monetary policy has been tightened and interest rates are moving higher. The Bundesbank is keen to follow suit and the BoJ is keeping the situation under review. Nevertheless, with wages in most countries still adjusting to the low inflation rates of the last two years, there is little evidence yet that prices are accelerating.
We expect to see world interest rates edging higher in the second half of the year as recorded inflation picks lip. But we believe that underlying inflation remains low and that, even on the assumption that oil prices return to 18 a barrel, OECD consumer price inflation will peak early next year at a little over 4 per cent. Tighter monetary policy is also expected to hold back demand over the next 12 months. Consequently, we expect some weak- ness in output in the first half of next year but discount the possibility of a severe recession. GNP growth in the OECD area is forecast to decline from the 3 per cent rate of 1987–8 to a little over 2 per cent next year and to a sustainable 2½ per cent p.a. over the medium term.     

Does trade integration alter monetary policy transmission?

This paper explores the role of trade integration—or openness—for monetary policy transmission in a medium-scale new Keynesian model. Allowing for strategic complementarities in price setting, we highlight a new dimension of the exchange rate channel by which monetary policy directly impacts domestic inflation: a monetary contraction which appreciates the exchange rate lowers the local currency price of imported goods; this, in turn, induces domestic producers to lower their prices too. We pin down key parameters of the model by matching impulse responses obtained from a vector autoregression on time series for the US relative to the euro area. Our estimation procedure yields plausible parameter values and suggests a strong role for strategic complementarities. Counterfactual simulations show that openness alters monetary transmission significantly. While the contractionary effect of a monetary policy shock on inflation and output tends to increase in openness, we find that monetary policy's control over inflation increases, as the output decline which is necessary to bring about a given reduction of inflation is smaller in more open economies.     

A New Keynesian model with staggered price and wage setting under learning

This paper provides a study of the implications for economic dynamics when the central bank sets its nominal interest rate target in response to variations in wage inflation. I provide results on the existence, uniqueness, and stability under learning of rational expectations equilibrium for alternative specifications of the manner in which monetary policy responds to economic shocks when nominal rigidities are present. Monopolistically competitive producers set prices via staggered price contracts, and households set nominal wages in the same fashion. In this setting, the conditions for determinacy and learnability of rational expectations equilibrium differ from a model where only prices are sticky. I find that when the central bank responds to wage and price inflation and to the output gap, a Taylor principle for wage and price inflation arises that is related to stability under learning dynamics. In other words, a moderate reaction of the interest rate to wage inflation helps to avoid instability under learning and indeterminacy.     

WORLD OUTLOOK

After six years of steadily rising OECD output, fears of a significant rise in world inflation are now increasing. In the last year there has been a slight pick-up in inflation with producer prices up nearly d per cent. But prompt action by the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates before the presidential election appears to have damped inflationary expectations in the US and has given Japan and Germany an opportunity to tighten monetary policy without causing major currency fluctuations. It is also apparent that the other possible source of world inflation, commodity prices, is not a problem. OPEC over-production has ensured that the oil price remains weak and other commodity prices appear to have stopped rising after a brief acceleration at the beginning of the year. Nevertheless the major imbalances in world trade are declining only slowly and without a change in fiscal policy in the major economies it is difficult to believe that minor changes in monetary policy will be sufficient if the process of adjustment begins to falter. Despite these risks, we take a sanguine view of world prospects. Tighter monetary policy should effect a slowdown in world growth next year (already indicated by recent developments, particularly in the US) and this should be sufficient to control inflation which we expect to peak at just under 5 per cent at the beginning of next year. From 1990 onwards we see steady growth accompanied by low inflation.     

House Prices, Housing Investment and Demography Forecasts from the LBS/Abbey National Model of the UK Housing Market

A new housing sector has been incorporated into the London Business School model. This article outlines the new housing model, summarizes the research which has gone into its construction, and presents a forecast of the UK housing market. Using the new housing model, we forecast a moderate recovery in the housing market in the later part of 1991 and 1992. This recovery is however short-lived and does not result in such high rates of house price increase as previous house price booms (Chart 1).
Cuts in interest rates following entry to the exchange rate mechanism of the EMS prompt a recovery in house prices from the middle of 1991. House price inflation then peaks with an increase in average UK house prices in 1992 of 11 per cent over the previous year. Increases in real personal disposable income are modest, by the standards of the 1980s, and for this reason the recovery does not develop the momentum of previous house price booms. House price inflation moderates again in 1993 falling back to around 7 per cent. Housing starts and housing investment recover only slightly from their present depressed levels.
the recovery in house prices is weaker than that foreseen in our April Forecast Release. This is because real personal disposable income is now forecast to grow more slowly during 1991. Sterling's membership of the ERM is followed by a fall in interest rates, but it is the timing of interest rate cuts rather than their magnitude which differs from the earlier forecast. The changed profile of interest rates has altered the house price forecast only marginally.     

Inflation, output, and stock prices: Evidence from two major emerging markets

Research in economics and finance documents a puzzling negative relationship between stock returns and inflation rates in markets of industrialized economies. The present study investigates this relationship for Korea and Mexico. We show that the negative relationship between the real stock returns and unexpected inflation persists after purging inflation of the effects of the real economic activity. Johansen and Juselius cointegration tests verify that the long-run equilibrium between stock prices and general price levels is weak. However, in both economies, stock prices and general price levels seem to show a strong long-run equilibrium with the real economic activity. This paper benefited from the constructive suggestions of an anonymous referee. The remaining errors are the authors’ responsibility. Financial support from the Dr. Robert B. Pamplin, Jr., School of Business Administration, University of Portland, is greatly appreciated.     

The London Business School with Gower Publishing: Forecast Release: EARNINGS AND UNEMPLOYMENT IN THE CAR INDUSTRY: THE BEST AND WORST OF BRITISH INDUSTRY

The Chancellor has described the cost in terms of lost output and higher unemployment of getting inflation down as ‘well worth paying’. Yet the trade-off so far is a miserable 1.25 per cent off the underlying rate of growth of earnings for an unemployment increase approaching 600,000, some 2–3 per cent off the underlying rate of inflation for a 3 per cent drop in GDP and a 7 per cent fall in manufacturing output. The question is clear: why is it that in the UK we seem to have to pay such a high price in terms of lost output and higher unemployment to make only modest progress on reducing wage and price inflation? One possible answer is in terms of the NAIRU; another stems from the way in which we measure retail price inflation. Using the example of the car industry as a backdrop, we examine the relationship between unemployment and inflation and ask whether there is a role for government to play in improving the trade-off. Our conclusion is that the present non-interventionist stance is probably appropriate but that the government should be doing more to educate both sides of the wage bargain - a challenge picked up by the Prime Minister in his recent speech to the CBI. This is especially appropriate at the present time, because price inflation is falling but wage inflation is lagging behind. It is not a cut in real wages that is required but an equi-proportionate deceleration in both wages and prices. By joining the ERM, we will ultimately obtain German rates of inflation; low wage settlements would both shorten the time-scale and reduce the unemployment cost of convergence.