Euro area inflation persistence

This paper presents evidence on the lag between monetary policy actions and the response of inflation in the euro area as a whole as well as in some of its core countries, notably Germany, Italy and France. In line with previous findings for the US and the UK, results here show that it takes over a year before monetary policy actions have their maximum effect on inflation both in the euro area and in individual countries and that a lag of this length has existed in Europe at least since the collapse of the Bretton Woods system, despite the numerous changes in European monetary policy regime thereafter. Results based on alternative definitions of inflation persistence support these findings and indicate, if any, that transmission lags could be in fact much longer for individual countries and the euro area as a whole, although, at the country level, there is strong evidence over time of a drop in German inflation persistence and a sizeable shift in the mean of inflation – particularly in Italy and France. An examination based on results from this paper reveals that euro area inflation persistence could well be an intrinsic phenomenon rather than a ‘statistical fluke’ due to aggregation.This research was conducted during my visit at the European Central Bank Directorate Research, as part of the Research Visitor Programme. I would like to thank Anna Maria Agresti for providing individual country data from the macroeconomic database of the Monetary Transmission Network; Alistair Dieppe for providing data from the ECB area-wide model dataset; and Michele Manna for supplying me with the area-wide M3 data for the period 1970–1980. I thank Gabriel Fagan, Frank Smets, Ignazio Angeloni, Vítor Gaspar, Michael Ehrmann, Guenter Coenen, Oreste Tristani, Tommaso Monacelli, Stephanie Schmitt-Grohe and Gerhard Ruenstler for helpful discussions during my stay at the ECB. I would also like to thank seminar participants at the ECB for their input and I am very grateful to Jeffrey Fuhrer, Edward Nelson and Kenneth West, Bernd Fitzenberger and two anonymous referees for comments on an earlier draft. Any errors and omissions are mine. The views expressed in this paper are those of the author and should not be attributed to the International Monetary Fund, its Executive Board, or its management     

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.     

Inflation surprises and inflation expectations in the Euro area

In the second half of 2012, euro area inflation started declining and reached historical lows at the end of 2014. Market-based measures of inflation expectations also declined to unprecedented levels. During this disinflationary period, inflation releases have often surprised analysts on the downside. We provide evidence that inflation ‘surprises’ have significant effects on inflation expectations. The sensitivity of inflation expectations to the surprises, which has varied over time, disappeared after the introduction of the Asset Purchase Programme by the European Central Bank.     

A persistence-weighted measure of core inflation in the Euro area

We propose a new core inflation measure for the Euro area which places the emphasis on the more lasting, i.e. persistent, price developments at a disaggregated level. The importance of each component of the HICP is reweighted according to its relative persistence, as measured by the sum of the autoregressive coefficients or by an indicator of mean reversion. Unlike headline inflation, our baseline core inflation measure is highly correlated with ECB monetary policy decisions, which could mean that they contain ex ante (pre monetary policy) information on inflationary pressure.     

A composite leading indicator of the inflation cycle for the Euro area

We evaluate the performance of composite leading indicators of turning points of inflation in the Euro area, constructed by combining the techniques of Fourier analysis and Kalman filters with the National Bureau of Economic Research methodology. In addition, the study compares the empirical performance of Euro Simple Sum and Divisia monetary aggregates and provides a tentative answer to the issue of whether or not the UK should join the Euro area. Our findings suggest that, first, the cyclical pattern of the different composite leading indicators very closely reflect that of the inflation cycle for the Euro area; second, the empirical performance of the Euro Divisia is better than its Simple Sum counterpart and third, the UK is better out of the Euro area.     

Distributional consequences of asset price inflation in the Euro Area

We study the distributional consequences of housing price, bond price and equity price increases for Euro Area households using data from the Household Finance and Consumption Survey (HFCS). The capital gains from bond price and equity price increases turn out to be concentrated among relatively few households, while the median household strongly benefits from housing price increases. The capital gains from bond price increases (relative to household net wealth) do not correlate with household net wealth (or income). Bond price increases thus leave net wealth inequality largely unchanged. In contrast, equity price increases largely benefit the top end of the net wealth (and income) distribution, thus amplify net wealth inequality. Housing price increases display a hump shaped pattern over the net wealth distribution, with the poorest and richest households benefitting least, but there exists considerable heterogeneity across Euro Area countries. The ECB's OMT announcements over the summer of 2012 had quantitatively similar distributional implications as an unexpected loosening of the policy rate by about 175 basis points.     

Asymmetric behavior of inflation differentials in the euro area: Evidence from a threshold unit root test

This paper tests the existence of persistent inflation rate differentials in the euro area by employing linear as well nonlinear unit root tests. Besides linear unit root tests, a two-regime threshold unit root test examines the conjecture that inflation rate differentials follow a nonlinear two-regime process towards a threshold, switching from the persistent regime to the transitory one and vice versa. The results imply that threshold nonlinearity is confirmed in 10 out of the 16 cases. However, we have found unit root regime-switching behavior only in six out of the 16 cases under investigation. This finding implies that these inflation rate differentials were persistent when they were low (regime 1), but transitory when they were high (regime 2). This asymmetric behavior can possibly be explained by the different degree of pressure exercised on governments, which is accompanied with different inflation rate differentials. On the contrary, despite the evidence of nonlinearity, the majority of the inflation rate differentials are found to be monotonically persistent. Our results have strong implications for policy makers. In particular, the documented persistency in the inflation rate differentials might have long-run costs in terms of price and macroeconomic stability.     

Rules and risk in the Euro area

We show that stronger fiscal rules in Euro area members reduce sovereign risk premia, in particular in times of market stress. Using a unique data set of rules-based fiscal governance in EU member states, we estimate a model of sovereign spreads that are determined by the probability of default in interaction with the level of risk aversion. The legal base of the rules and their enforcement mechanisms are the most important dimensions of rules-based fiscal governance.     

Forecasting industrial production in the Euro area

The creation of the Euro area has increased the importance of obtaining timely information about short-term changes in the area's real activity. In this paper we propose a number of alternative short term forecasting models, ranging from simple ARIMA models to more complex cointegrated VAR and conditional models, to forecast the index of industrial production in the euro area. A conditional error-correction model in which the aggregate index of industrial production for the area is explained by the US industrial production index and the business confidence index from the European Commission harmonised survey on manufacturing firms achieves the best score in terms of forecasting capacity. First version received: Jan. 2000/Final version received: March 2000     

Monetary transmission in Germany: Lessons for the Euro area

This study analyses the transmission of monetary policy in Germany for the EMS period in the framework of a structural vector error correction model (S-VECM).Three stable cointegration relationships are found: a money demand relation, an interest rate spread and a stationary real interest rate. Based on both contemporaneous and long-run restrictions, five structural shocks to the economy are identified. In contrast to analyses for the euro area, we find that output and inflation are not independent in the long run for Germany. In accordance with results previously found for Europe, we do not find strong support for monetary targeting for Germany. Our analysis indicates that uncertainties remain concerning the controllability of money and its usefulness as a leading indicator with respect to inflation. Stability of the money demand relationship does not seem to be problematic.Jel classification:C32, C52, E41, E43, E52We would like to thank Jörg Breitung, Bertrand Candelon, Peter van Els, Carsten Folkertsma, Helmut Lütkepohl, Dieter Nautz, Hans-Eggert Reimers, Nikolaus Siegfried and Jürgen Wolters, two anonymous referees as well as participants of the 8th World Congress of the Econometric Society in Seattle and the Annual Meeting of the Verein für Sozialpolitik in Berlin for helpful comments. The views expressed in this paper do not necessarily reflect those of the European Central Bank or De Nederlandsche Bank.Both authors were working at the research department of De Nederlandsche Bank at the time of writing.First revision received: April 2002/Final revision received: January 2003     

Euro Crises and Euro Scams: Trade not Debt and Deficits Tell the Tale

The euro crisis has been typically presented as excessive fiscal deficits leading to the accumulation of unsustainable public debts. This debt and deficit diagnosis applied most notably in Greece and Italy, but also in Portugal and Spain (the ‘PIGS’). Implicit in much of the analysis, and occasionally explicit, is the suggestion that these were not only profligate but also lazy PIGS that spent beyond their means and abandoned a commitment to international competitiveness. This article demonstrates that the German export-led growth strategy generated large trade and current account deficits throughout the eurozone in the 2000s. When the global financial crisis struck the continent in 2008, these trade-based deficits proved unsustainable. With the exception of Greece, neither public debts nor fiscal deficits represented a major problem among eurozone countries prior to 2008. The analysis leads to measures that could have avoided the crisis of sovereign debt entirely, as well as corrected the unsustainable trade balances in the euro zone. These policies were not seriously considered, with the result that in the second decade of the 21st century the future of the common currency is in doubt.     

Oil and the Euro area economy

We examine the macroeconomic effects of different types of oil shocks and the oil transmission mechanism in the Euro area. A comparison is made with the US and across individual member countries. First, we find that the underlying source of the oil price shift is crucial to determine the repercussions on the economy and the appropriate monetary policy reaction. Second, the transmission mechanism is considerably different compared to the US. In particular, inflationary effects in the US are mainly driven by a strong direct pass-through of rising energy prices and indirect effects of higher production costs. In contrast, Euro area inflation reacts sluggishly and is much more driven by second-round effects of increasing wages. The monetary policy reaction of the ECB to oil shocks is also strikingly different compared to the FED. The inflation objective, relative to the output stabilization objective, appears more important for Euro area monetary authorities than for the FED. Third, there are substantial asymmetries across member countries. These differences are due to different labour market dynamics which are further aggravated by a common monetary policy stance which does not fit all.
--- Gert Peersman and Ine Van Robays     

Understanding the dynamics of labor shares and inflation

Calvo-style models of nominal rigidities currently provide the dominant paradigm for understanding the linkages between wage and price dynamics. Recent empirical implementations stress the idea that these models link inflation to the behavior of the labor share of income. Ga?´ et al. (2001) argue that the model explains the combination of declining inflation and labor shares in Euro area. In this paper, we show that with realistic parameters, the canonical Calvo-style model cannot explain the joint behavior of inflation and the labor share in Europe. In addition, we show that the model fails very badly in sectoral data with consistently negative estimated coefficients on the labor share in a number of different inflation specifications. Indeed, the use of a traditional output gap measure proved more successful in terms of a positive relationship with inflation.     

中国通货膨胀的福利成本研究

Inflation is always an important indicator to measure whether economy is stable and healthy. This paper provides a substantive survey of the research on the welfare cost of inflation, and uses the methods of consumer’s surplus and neo-classical general equilibrium models respectively to estimate the welfare cost of inflation in China. The results show that high inflation will cause huge welfare cost in China, so keeping low inflation is beneficial to the entire economic welfare of China. __________ Translated from Jingji Yanjiu 经济研究 (Economic Research Journal), 2007, (4): 30–42, 159     

Survey-based forecast distributions for Euro Area growth and inflation: ensembles versus histograms

Ensemble methods can be used to construct a forecast distribution from a collection of point forecasts. They are used extensively in meteorology, but have received little direct attention in economics. In a real-time analysis of the ECB’s Survey of Professional Forecasters, we compare ensemble methods to histogram-based forecast distributions of GDP growth and inflation in the Euro Area. We find that ensembles perform very similarly to histograms, while being simpler to handle in practice. Given the wide availability of surveys that collect point forecasts but not histograms, these results suggest that ensembles deserve further investigation in economics.     

The cost of inflation: A mechanism design approach

I apply mechanism design to quantify the cost of inflation that can be attributed to monetary frictions alone. In an environment with pairwise meetings, the money demand that is consistent with an optimal, incentive feasible allocation takes the form of a continuous correspondence that can fit the data over the period 1900–2006. For such parameterizations, the cost of moderate inflation is zero. This result is robust to the introduction of match-specific heterogeneity and endogenous participation decisions.     

Macroeconomic forecasting in the Euro area: Country specific versus area-wide information

This paper compares several time series methods for short-run forecasting of Euro-wide inflation and real activity using data from 1982 to 1997. Forecasts are constructed from univariate autoregressions, vector autoregressions, single equation models that include Euro-wide and US aggregates, and large-model methods in which forecasts are based on estimates of common dynamic factors. Aggregate Euro-wide forecasts are constructed from models that utilize only aggregate Euro-wide variables and by aggregating country-specific models. The results suggest that forecasts constructed by aggregating the country-specific models are more accurate than forecasts constructed using the aggregate data.     

Comparing new Keynesian models in the Euro area: a Bayesian approach

This paper estimates and compares four versions of the sticky price New Keynesian model for the Euro area using a Bayesian approach. We find that the average duration of price contracts is between two and four quarters, while the average duration of wage contracts is estimated to be below two quarters. Both mechanisms of price and wage indexation are not important when autocorrelated price markup shocks are introduced in the model. These results are in stark contrast to Smets and Wouters (2003): when we use their priors, our estimated posterior distributions are similar to theirs, but the models’ fit to the data is worse. We are thankful to the Econometric Modelling Unit at the European Central Bank for providing us with the Euro area data. We also thank two anonymous referees for helpful suggestions. The views expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of Caixa d’Estalvis i Pensions de Barcelona (“la Caixa”).     

Non-linearities in euro area inflation persistence

This paper investigates the nature of inflation dynamics with a special focus on inflation persistence. Using data from euro area member-states we estimate dynamic non-linear panel models addressing in detail econometric issues concerning unobserved heterogeneity, genuine state dependence, and the initial conditions problem. After controlling for observed and unobserved heterogeneity, our results suggest that the degree of inflation persistence is genuine and varies depending on whether the inflation rate is too high, within the range of ECB's target of price stability, too low or negative. This implies that policies to stabilize inflation in the short run will have longer-run effects.