A Note on Inflation Persistence / Steinar Holden, John C. Driscoll.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Holden, Steinar.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Driscoll, John C.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w8690.

NBER working paper series no. w8690

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2001.

Summary:

Macroeconomists have for some time been aware that the New Keynesian Phillips curve, though highly popular in the literature, cannot explain the persistence observed in actual inflation. We argue that two of the more prominent alternative formulations, the Fuhrer and Moore (1995) relative contracting model and the Blanchard and Katz (1999) reservation wage conjecture, are highly problematic. Fuhrer and Moore (1995)'s formulation generates inflation persistence, but this is a consequence of their assuming that workers care about the past real wages of other workers. Making the more reasonable assumption that workers care about the current real wages of other workers, one obtains the standard formulation with no inflation persistence. The Blanchard and Katz conjecture turns out to imply that inflation depends negatively on itself lagged, i.e. the opposite of the empirical regularity.

Notes:

Print version record

December 2001.