Government solvency and financial markets: Dynamic panel estimates for the European Monetary Union

We assess government solvency in the European Monetary Union (EMU), controlling for the interaction of fiscal policy with financial markets. We find a positive interaction, reflecting market-based pressures for fiscal improvement, and significant debt stabilization efforts, weakened in the post-EMU era.     

A First Assessment of Some Measures of Core Inflation for the Euro Area

Abstract. Core inflation plays an important role in the deliberations of monetary policy-makers. In this paper we evaluate a number of measures of core inflation constructed using euro-area data. In addition to the traditional exclusion-type core measures, we examine two newer ones, documenting their properties and evaluating their performance in terms of their ability to track underlying or trend inflation in real time. We focus on core measures derived from the Harmonized Index of Consumer Prices (HICP) as the European Central Bank has chosen to define its mandate for price stability in terms of this index, and because this is the only index of consumer prices that is compiled in a comparable manner across all members of the European Union. We document significant excess kurtosis in the cross-section distribution of price changes in the euro area, and show that several categories of prices are more volatile than those typically excluded from traditional measures of core inflation. Contrary to what one might expect, traditional measures of core inflation are not significantly less volatile than headline measures. We document the superior performance of alternative measures of core inflation in tracking trend inflation on average, but show that none of the various measures of core gave significant advance warning of the pickup in trend inflation at the beginning of 1999.     

Inflation before and after central bank independence: The case of Colombia

In this paper we model the Colombian inflation rate in terms of excess demand effects from asset, goods and factor markets. In contrast to previous results for a group of industrial economies, we find that domestic factors are a far more powerful influence on inflation than are external factors. The paper pays particular attention to the potential effects of the Constitutional Reform of 1991, which created a Central Bank independent from other parts of government. We find that the creation of an independent Central Bank did change some of the parameters of the model, as the disequilibria in goods and monetary markets were found to have a smaller effect on inflation after Central Bank independence was granted.     

Unit roots and persistence in the nominal interest rate: a confirmatory analysis applied to the OECD

Abstract.  This paper investigates the stochastic properties of long-term and short-term nominal interest rates for the OECD over the post-war era. For that purpose, we employ univariate unit root tests as well as panel unit root and stationarity tests that explicitly allow for cross-sectional dependence. Overall, we find overwhelming evidence that the nominal interest rate contains a unit root, which may be driven by a stochastic common factor. The computation of half-lives through impulse-response functions also points to a high degree of persistence. This has important implications for the cointegration analysis of the Fisher equation, the uncovered interest parity, and the term structure.     

Inflation Developments and Perceptions after the Euro Cash Changeover

Abstract. This paper analyses the evolution of inflation and of consumers' inflation perceptions in the aftermath of the euro cash changeover. It finds that the cross‐country variation of food product inflation was dependent on the complexity of conversion rates, with statistically significant and economically sizeable effects especially for low‐priced items sold in midpriced stores. The paper also shows that cross‐country differences in the mismatch of perceived and actual inflation were linked to differences in the complexity of conversion rates. These results are in line with theories of finite information‐processing capacities on the side of consumers.     

Using mean reversion as a measure of persistence

This paper suggests a new scalar measure of persistence together with a companion estimator, which has the advantage of not requiring the specification and estimation of a model for the series under investigation. The statistical properties of the companion estimator are established, which allow tests of hypotheses to be performed, under very general conditions. The use of the new measure is illustrated by re-evaluating persistence of inflation for the United States and the Euro Area. The conclusions for the United States do not differ significantly from what has been found in previous empirical studies. However, for the Euro Area we find evidence of a significant break occurring in 2001/2002, such that persistence becomes virtually nil for the period that follows the launch of the euro and the implementation of a common monetary policy by the European Central Bank.     

Time-varying inflation persistence in the Euro area

This paper investigates how inflation persistence in the Euro area has evolved between 1991 and 2006. Employing an ARMA(1,11) model with time-varying autoregressive parameter, we find that inflation persistence has fallen markedly since the third stage of the EMU began in January 1999 and inflation no longer exhibits unit-root behaviour.     

The behaviour of relative prices in the European Union: A sectoral analysis

Using multivariate unit root test methods, this paper investigates the Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) hypothesis at the sectoral level across six European countries over the last 17 years. Evidence of mean reversion towards PPP is found for the relative prices of some sectors and countries. Mean reversion in relative prices is explained by cross-country and cross-sectoral characteristics such as the distance between countries, nominal exchange rate volatility, differences in GDP per capita, non-tariff barriers, research and development, advertising, industrial concentration and tradeability of the products.     

Meeting Maastricht: Nominal convergence of the new member states toward EMU

This paper estimates whether the new member states (NMS) that joined the EU in 2004 have achieved a form of inflation and long-term interest rate convergence. Using quarterly data from the mid-1990s, convergence is evaluated through a series of unit root and cointegration tests. Both univariate and panel tests are performed, including tests for a large number of combinations of inflation and interest rates satisfying the Maastricht inflation and long-term interest rate criteria. It is generally found that nominal convergence in inflation has been attained among the NMS. There is, however, less evidence of convergence in long-term interest rates. Possible exceptions include Estonia and the Czech Republic and, to a lesser extent, Slovakia which has since joined the euro area. There is also a large degree of consistency between the various unit root and cointegration tests in both the univariate and panel variations.     

Monetary and fiscal policy interactions: Evidence from emerging European economies

This paper examines the interactions between fiscal and monetary policy for some former transition, emerging European economies over the 1995Q1–2010Q4 period by using a Markov regime-switching model. We consider the monetary policy rule proposed by Taylor (1993) and the fiscal policy rule suggested by Davig and Leeper (2007) in accounting for monetary and fiscal policy interactions. Empirical results suggest that monetary and fiscal policy rules exhibit switching properties between active and passive regimes and all countries followed both active and passive monetary policies. As for fiscal policy, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, and Slovenia seem to have alternated between active and passive fiscal regimes while fiscal policies of Poland and the Slovak Republic can be characterized by a single fiscal regime. Although the policy mix and the interactions between monetary and fiscal policy point a diverse picture in our sample countries, the monetary policy seems to be passive in all countries after 2000. This finding is consistent with the constraints imposed by European Union enlargement on monetary policy.     

Inflation forecast uncertainty

We study the inflation uncertainty reported by individual forecasters in the Survey of Professional Forecasters 1969-2001. Three popular measures of uncertainty built from survey data are analyzed in the context of models for forecasting and asset pricing, and improved estimation methods are suggested. Popular time series models are evaluated for their ability to reproduce survey measures of uncertainty. The results show that disagreement is a better proxy of inflation uncertainty than what previous literature has indicated, and that forecasters underestimate inflation uncertainty. We obtain similar results for output growth uncertainty.     

Inflation, price dispersion, and market structure

In this paper, we use a novel data set containing prices from bazaars, convenience stores, and supermarkets in Istanbul to re-examine the relationship between price dispersion and inflation. Although existing evidence is mixed, we find positive and significant relationships between dispersion, on the one hand, and lagged dispersion and unexpected product-specific inflation on the other. We also find evidence that dispersion is initially decreasing in anticipated aggregate inflation but is eventually increasing. Finally, average price duration and dispersion are lowest in the bazaar. This is intuitive, since menu and search costs should be minimal in that market structure.     

Interest Rate Volatility Prior to Monetary Union under Alternative Pre-Switch Regimes

Abstract. The volatility of interest rates is relevant for many financial applications. Under realistic assumptions the term structure of interest rate differentials provides an important predictor of the term structure of interest rates. This paper derives the term structure of differentials in a situation in which two open economies plan to enter a monetary union in the future. Two systems of floating exchange rates prior to the union are considered, namely a free-float and a managed-float regime. The volatility processes of arbitrary-term differentials under the respective pre-switch arrangements are compared. The paper elaborates the singularity of extremely short-term (i.e. instantaneous) interest rates under extensive leaning-against-the-wind interventions and discusses policy issues.     

An Alternative Core Inflation Measure

Abstract. We combine the ideas of the trimmed mean and the Edgeworth index to construct an alternative measure of core inflation named 'Trim of Most Volatile Components (TMVC)'. At each point of time, this measure trims away the components of the price index that have been most volatile in the recent past. Statistical tests indicate that neither the trimmed mean nor the Edgeworth index dominates the TMVC in terms of tracking trend inflation.     

The persistence in real exchange rate: Evidence from East Asian countries

In this article, we examine the degree of persistence in monthly real exchange rate of six East Asian countries in relation to their two major trading partners, the United States and Japan, to study the validity of PPP for the 1976:01–2009:03 period. To investigate the persistency in real exchange rate series, we use sum of the autoregressive (AR) coefficients and the confidence interval for it using grid-bootstrap procedure recently developed by Hansen (1999). We have two findings: first, we find evidence for high persistency in real exchange rate in terms of the Japanese yen for five countries and for four countries in terms of the US dollar the for the full and pre-crisis sample periods. Second, for the post-crisis period, the presence of low persistency in real exchange rate supports PPP for three countries in terms of the Japanese yen and five countries in terms of the US dollar. These findings indicate that real exchange rate series of five East Asian countries are mean-revert based on their exchange rate policies and East Asian countries can form a currency union.     

New Phillips curve under alternative production technologies for Canada, the United States, and the Euro area

This paper shows that alternative production technologies imply two modifications to the New Phillips Curve (NPC): A specific ‘strategic complementarity parameter’ that affects the relationship between real marginal cost and inflation and a specific modification to the labour share measure of real marginal cost. Estimates of average duration of nominal price stickiness obtained conditional on the strategic complementarity parameter are substantially smaller, and therefore more plausible, relative to when this parameter is ignored. Modifications to the marginal cost measure alone have little effect on the NPC estimates. The empirical fit of the NPC under alternative production technologies is similar.     

Convergence in price levels across US cities

This paper empirically tests for convergence in consumer price indices across 17 major cities in US over the 1918-2008 period. By using the novel OLS estimator introduced by Bao, Y., Dhongde, S., 2009. Testing convergence in income distribution. Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics 71, 295-302, we find overwhelming evidences in support of price level convergence over time.     

Dynamic persistence in the unemployment rate of OECD countries

Previous studies use a variety of increasingly advanced unit root tests to determine whether Blanchard and Summers (1986) hysteresis theory of unemployment or the classical ‘natural’ rate theory of Friedman (1968) and Phelps (1967, 1968) is most relevant for a given country. However these tests all specify a unit root under the null hypothesis against a stationary alternative, such as in the paper by Lee and Chang (2008), making the two theories of unemployment mutually exclusive over the sample period. This paper moves away from this dichotomy by allowing for switches between hysteresis and the natural rate theory using the recently developed test of Leybourne, Kim and Taylor (2007). We find that in countries like the United Kingdom, the natural rate theory is detected in the post-World War Two period of stabilisation: the time leading up to the seminal works of Friedman and Phelps. Hysteresis is found over the First World War and Great Depression periods, and in the period from the 1970s; a time characterised by rising trade union power. We also compute numerical measures of persistence using grid-bootstrap estimates of the autoregressive parameter, following Hansen (1999).     

Goods and Services Tax Effects on Goods and Services Included in the Consumer Price Index Basket*

This paper quantifies the magnitude and duration of the goods and services tax (GST) effect on the quarterly growth rate of the 11 groups of the consumer price index (CPI) in Australia using the Box and Tiao intervention analysis. It was found that prices did not increase significantly before or after the introduction of GST, beyond what could have been expected on the basis of the discernible systematic pattern of fluctuation in the data. Furthermore, the varying one-off effect of GST on prices was significant in seven out of 11 CPI groups; the effect was found insignificant for the other four CPI groups.     

Long-Run Links among Money, Prices and Output: Worldwide Evidence

Abstract. Starting from the quantity theory of money we analyse the dynamic relationships between money, real output and prices for an unbalanced panel of 110 economies. Complementary to trivariate analyses we also adopt a P-star model explaining inflation via an equilibrium price level (P-star), which in turn depends on potential output and money. A key issue of the paper is the cross-sectional stability of estimation and inference results. We find cointegration among the considered variables. Particularly for high inflation countries homogeneity between prices and money cannot be rejected. Given homogeneity we find evidence for an error-correction mechanism linking current price changes and the lagged price gap. Parameter estimates indicating the adjustment towards the price equilibrium are larger in absolute value for high inflation countries. The latter results indicate that central banks, even in high inflation countries, can improve price stability by controlling monetary growth.