Inflation and the Macroeconomy: Changes from the 1980s to the 1990s

Over the last 10 years, the level of inflation has been much lower than in the previous two decades. At the same time, the behaviour of inflation has changed profoundly. By surveying the data and the economic research, the author first examines changes in the variability, growth rates, and behaviour of some of the major macroeconomic variables during the 1980s and 1990s. He then looks at how these changes are linked to a shift in the approach of monetary policy over the period. Lastly, he reviews the economic benefits that these changes have had for Canada.

Macroeconomic dynamics and inflation regimes in the U.S. Results from threshold vector autoregressions

This paper studies regime dependence in macroeconomic dynamics in the U.S. using a threshold vector autoregressive model in which endogenous regime switches are triggered by the inflation rate. The model separates a high from a low inflation regime with both regimes being strongly persistent. Generalized impulse response functions highlight important across-regime differences in the responses of the economy to monetary policy and inflation shocks. Simulating both regimes with individual structural equations interchanged shows a change in inflation dynamics to be the most important source of the transition of the U.S. economy from the high into the low inflation state while the change in the monetary policy reaction functions has only very little effect. Our results indicate that favorable changes in the economic structure and less frequent and smaller shocks are important explanations for the observed decline in U.S. macroeconomic volatility since the mid 1980s.threshold vector autoregression, Great Moderation

A Tax-Based Estimate of the Elasticity of Intertemporal Substitution

One of the most important behavioral parameters in macroeconomics is the elasticity of intertemporal substitution (EIS). Starting with the seminal work of Hall (1978), researchers have used an Euler equation framework to estimate the EIS, relating the growth rate of consumption to the after-tax interest rate facing consumers. This large literature has, however, produced very mixed results, perhaps due to an important limitation: the impact of the interest rate on consumption or savings is identified by time series movements in interest rates. Yet the factors that cause time series movements in interest rates may themselves be correlated with consumption or savings decisions. I address this problem by using variation across individuals in the capital income tax rate. Conditional on observable characteristics of individuals, tax rate movements cause exogenous shifts in the after-tax interest rate. Using data on total non-durable consumption from the Consumer Expenditure Survey over two decades, I estimate a surprisingly high EIS of 2. This finding is robust to a variety of specification checks.

Does money matter in inflation forecasting?.

This paper provides the most fully comprehensive evidence to date on whether or not monetary aggregates are valuable for forecasting US inflation in the early to mid 2000s. We explore a wide range of different definitions of money, including different methods of aggregation and different collections of included monetary assets. In our forecasting experiment we use two non-linear techniques, namely, recurrent neural networks and kernel recursive least squares regression - techniques that are new to macroeconomics. Recurrent neural networks operate with potentially unbounded input memory, while the kernel regression technique is a finite memory predictor. The two methodologies compete to find the best fitting US inflation forecasting models and are then compared to forecasts from a naive random walk model. The best models were non-linear autoregressive models based on kernel methods. Our findings do not provide much support for the usefulness of monetary aggregates in forecasting inflation

Forecasting the nominal exchange rate movements in a changing world. The case of the U.S. and the U.K.

Exchange rate forecasting has become an arena for many researchers the last decades while predictability depends heavily on several factors such as the choice of the fundamentals, the econometric model and the data form. The aim of this paper is to assess whether modelling time-variation and other forms of instabilities may improve the forecasting performance of the models. Paper begins with a brief critical review of the recently developed exchange rate forecasting models and continues with a real-time forecasting race between our fundamentals-based models, a DSGE model, estimated with Bayesian techniques and the benchmark random walk model without drift. Results suggest that models accounting for non-linearities may generate poor forecasts relative to more parsimonious and linear models

Macroeconomic forecasting and structural change

The aim of this paper is to assess whether explicitly modeling structural change increases the accuracy of macroeconomic forecasts. We produce real time out-of-sample forecasts for inflation, the unemployment rate and the interest rate using a Time-Varying Coefficients VAR with Stochastic Volatility (TV-VAR) for the US. The model generates accurate predictions for the three variables. In particular for inflation the TV-VAR outperforms, in terms of mean square forecast error, all the competing models: fixed coefficients VARs, Time-Varying ARs and the na¨ıve random walk model. These results are also shown to hold over the most recent period in which it has been hard to forecast inflation. JEL Classification: C32, E37, E47forecasting, inflation, stochastic volatility, Time Varying Vector Autoregression

Optimal Currency Areas

As the number of independent countries increases and their economies become more integrated, we would expect to observe more multi-country currency unions. This paper explores the pros and cons for different countries to adopt as an anchor the dollar, the euro, or the yen. Although there appear to be reasonably well-defined euro and dollar areas, there does not seem to be a yen area. We also address the question of how trade and co-movements of outputs and prices would respond to the formation of a currency union. This response is important because the decision of a country to join a union would depend on how the union affects trade and co-movements.

Backward bending structure of Phillips Curve in Japan, France, Turkey and the U.S.A.

This work aims to analyse the cointegration and the causality relationship between inflation and unemployment by using nonlinear A.R.D.L. and two popular nonlinear causality tests for the period from 1960 to 2016 in Japan, Turkey, the U.S.A. and from 1970 to 2016 in France. This study complements the previous empirical papers. However, it differs from the existing literature with simultaneous use of nonlinear A.R.D.L. and causality methods. Nonlinear A.R.D.L. determined that there is a long run relationship between inflation and unemployment; between economic growth and unemployment for Japan, France, the U.S.A. and Turkey

Inflation and Relative Price Dispersion in Canada: An Empirical Assessment

The authors investigate empirically the relationship between different aspects of inflation and relative price dispersion in Canada using a Markov regime-switching Phillips curve. They examine three theories that explain movements in relative price dispersion: the signal extraction model, the extension of the signal extraction model, and the menu cost model. The authors show that expected inflation, which is captured by the menu cost model, is the aspect of inflation that is most closely associated with relative price dispersion. Furthermore, this result seems robust to different specifications. The authors, however, cannot completely discard inflation uncertainty (the signal extraction model), especially when using core inflation. They also observe a strong asymmetry regarding the impact of positive and negative unexpected inflation on relative price dispersion using total inflation, but this asymmetry is not observed for core inflation. This suggests that the strong asymmetry arises mainly from the presence of components typically associated with supply shocks, and not from the presence of downward nominal rigidities, as Aarstol (1999) proposes, following Ball and Mankiw (1992a,b).Inflation and prices