Sources of Inflation Persistence in the Euro Area

In recent years, inflation in the euro area has failed to decelerate decisively while cyclical slack built up in the economy. Is this phenomenon more than a peculiarity in recent data? Is it related to structural policy settings? Econometric analysis conducted on two decades of quarterly data covering 17 countries yields a yes on both counts. First, inflation is shown to respond significantly more weakly to cyclical slack in the euro area than in countries such as the United Kingdom, the United States or Canada. Secondly, this lack of responsiveness is found to be related in a statistically significant way to more rigid structural policy settings. The results pass a wide range of robustness checks. This Working Paper relates to the 2005 OECD Economic Survey of the euro area (www.oecd.org/eco/surveys/euroarea).