Globalization and Inflation Dynamics: the Impact of Increased Competition / Argia M. Sbordone.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Sbordone, Argia M.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w13556.

NBER working paper series no. w13556

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Other Title:

Globalization and Inflation Dynamics

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2007.

Summary:

This paper analyzes the potential effect of global market competition on inflation dynamics. It does so through the lens of the Calvo model of staggered price-setting, which implies that inflation depends on expected future inflation and a measure of marginal costs. I modify the assumption of a constant elasticity of demand, standard in this model, to provide a channel through which an increase in the number of traded goods may affect the degree of strategic complementarity in price setting, and hence alter the dynamic response of inflation to marginal costs. I first discuss the behavior of the variables that drive the impact of trade openness on this response, and then I evaluate whether an increase in the variety of traded goods of the size observed in the US in the `90s might have a sizable quantitative impact. I find that it is difficult to argue that such an increase in trade should have generated an increase in US market competition leading to a decline in the slope of the inflation-marginal cost relation.

Notes:

Print version record

October 2007.