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Discussion Paper
How Much Do Inflation Expectations Matter for Inflation Dynamics?
Inflation dynamics are often described by some form of the Phillips curve. Named after A. W. Phillips, the British economist whose study of U.K. wage and unemployment data laid the groundwork, the Phillips curve denotes an inverse relationship between inflation and some measure of economic slack. A much-discussed issue in the literature is how forward-looking this relationship is. In this post, we address this question using a flexible version of the New Keynesian Phillips curve (NKPC) to illustrate the key role that expectations play in inflation dynamics.
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U.S. wage and price dynamics: a limited information approach
This paper analyzes the dynamics of prices and wages using a limited information approach to estimation. I estimate a two-equation model for the determination of prices and wages derived from an optimization-based dynamic model in which both goods and labor markets are monopolistically competitive; prices and wages can be reoptimized only at random intervals; and, when prices and wages are not reoptimized, they can be partially adjusted to previous-period aggregate inflation. The estimation procedure is a two-step minimum distance estimation that exploits the restrictions imposed by the model ...
Discussion Paper
Forecasting with the FRBNY DSGE Model
The Federal Reserve Bank of New York (FRBNY) has built a DSGE model as part of its efforts to forecast the U.S. economy. On Liberty Street Economics, we are publishing a weeklong series to provide some background on the model and its use for policy analysis and forecasting, as well as its forecasting performance. In this post, we briefly discuss what DSGE models are, explain their usefulness as a forecasting tool, and preview the forthcoming pieces in this series.
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A Large Bayesian VAR of the United States Economy
We model the United States macroeconomic and financial sectors using a formal and unified econometric model. Through shrinkage, our Bayesian VAR provides a flexible framework for modeling the dynamics of thirty-one variables, many of which are tracked by the Federal Reserve. We show how the model can be used for understanding key features of the data, constructing counterfactual scenarios, and evaluating the macroeconomic environment both retrospectively and prospectively. Considering its breadth and versatility for policy applications, our modeling approach gives a reliable, reduced form ...
Journal Article
Does inflation reduce productivity?
Discussion Paper
Is the Recent Inflationary Spike a Global Phenomenon?
In the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, inflation rose almost simultaneously in most economies around the world. After peaking in mid-2022, inflation then went into decline—a fall that was just as universal as the initial rise. In this post, we explore the interrelation of inflation dynamics across OECD countries by constructing a measure of the persistence of global inflation. We then study the extent to which the persistence of global inflation reflects broad-based swings, as opposed to idiosyncratic country-level movements. Our main finding is that the spike and subsequent moderation ...
Report
Measurement and Theory of Core Inflation
We discuss the concept of core inflation and its relevance for policymakers and then review a variety of approaches that have been pursued for the construction of informative core measures. After illustrating some empirical patterns displayed by U.S. inflation data and discussing conceptual issues around measurement, we provide a unified framework to interpret various widely used core measures and compare their relative properties.
Report
Inflation persistence: alternative interpretations and policy implications
In this paper, I consider the policy implications of two alternative structural interpretations of observed inflation persistence, which correspond to two alternative specifications of the new Keynesian Phillips curve (NKPC). The first specification allows for some degree of intrinsic persistence by way of a lagged inflation term in the NKPC. The second is a purely forward-looking model, in which expectations farther into the future matter and coefficients are time-varying. In this specification, most of the observed inflation persistence is attributed to fluctuations in the underlying ...
Discussion Paper
Inflation Persistence: Dissecting the News in January PCE Data
This post presents updated estimates of inflation persistence, following the release of personal consumption expenditure (PCE) price data for January 2023. The estimates are obtained by the Multivariate Core Trend (MCT), a model we introduced on Liberty Street Economics last year and covered most recently here and here. The MCT is a dynamic factor model estimated on monthly data for the seventeen major sectors of the PCE price index. It decomposes each sector’s inflation as the sum of a common trend, a sector-specific trend, a common transitory shock, and a sector-specific transitory shock. ...
Journal Article
Policy analysis using DSGE models: an introduction
Many central banks have come to rely on dynamic stochastic general equilibrium, or DSGE, models to inform their economic outlook and to help formulate their policy strategies. But while their use is familiar to policymakers and academics, these models are typically not well known outside these circles. This article introduces the basic structure, logic, and application of the DSGE framework to a broader public by providing an example of its use in monetary policy analysis. The authors present and estimate a simple New Keynesian DSGE model, highlighting the core features that this basic ...