There is no consensus over the importance of "global forces" on inflation. This study explores the role of structural breaks in the inflation process, and their timing, whether it is common across countries, and the extent to which "global forces" are relevant. Three conclusions stand out....

With a few unfortunate exceptions the last three decades have seen reductions in inflation around the world to the point that many would argue that further improvements in price stability would offer only limited welfare gains. This experience is the result of many factors, some of which are...

The aim of this paper is to rely on a wide variety of forecasts and survey based estimates of inflationary expectations since the early 1990s for a group of 9 economies, 5 of which explicitly target inflation, and ask: To what extent are disagreements over forecasts of inflation driven by...

This paper examines the evolution of disagreement over the short-term inflation outlook in nine advanced economies during the decade and half beginning in the 2000s. The paper focuses on how disagreement is largely shaped by the benchmark against which this concept is evaluated and the role of...

In this paper we investigate dynamics of global inflation and short-run inflation expectations. We estimate a global vector autoregressive (GVAR) model estimated using Bayesian techniques. We then explore the effect of three source of inflationary pressure that could drive up inflation...

A new measure of credibility is constructed as a function of the differential between observed inflation and some estimate of the inflation rate that the central bank targets. The target is assumed to be met flexibly. Credibility is calculated for a large group of both advanced and emerging...

This paper has examined the evolution of disagreement over the short-term inflation outlook in nine advanced economies during the decade and half beginning in the 2000s. The paper focuses on how disagreement is largely shaped by the benchmark against which this concept is evaluated and the role...

A relation between inflation and the path of average marginal cost (often measured by unit labor cost) implied by the Calvo (1983) model of staggered pricing --- sometimes referred to as the "new-Keynesian Phillips curve"--- has been the subject of extensive econometric estimation and testing....