This paper examines the effect of inflation on productivity growth in Australia. Broad historical correlations suggest a negative relationship between inflation and aggregate productivity growth. The low-frequency nature of the relationship, however, means it is difficult to establish...

In this paper we develop a theoretical framework that helps to analyse the role of monetary policy in responding to asset-price bubbles. A large and rapid fall in the nominal price of assets that form the basis of collateral for loans from financial intermediaries can have adverse effects on...

This paper presents a new measure of underlying inflation: component-smoothed inflation. It approaches the problem of determining underlying inflation from a different direction than previous methods. Rather than excluding or trimming out volatile CPI items, it smoothes components of the CPI...

Standard trade theory suggests that internationalisation of an economy should lead to increased competitive pressures and an improvement in the efficiency with which domestic goods are produced and priced. We examine a number of ways in which the pricing behaviour of the Australian manufacturing...

Almost a decade ago David Gruen and Geoff Shuetrim constructed a small macroeconomic model of the Australian economy. A comprehensive description of this model was subsequently provided by Beechey <em>et al</em> (2000). Since that time, however, the model has continued to evolve. This paper provides an...

There has been much talk in the popular press about the difficulty of attaining credibility in the bond markets for the low-inflation policies that have been adopted by a number of central banks in recent years. This credibility problem is particularly severe for those countries that have a...

Measured inflation records many shocks that are not representative of the persistent component of inflation. Several methods are used to construct measures of core inflation which abstract from these unrepresentative shocks; this paper focuses on trimmed means. Analysis of Australian CPI...

The Phillips curve has generally been estimated in a linear framework. This paper investigates the possibility that the Phillips curve is indeed a curve, and shows that a convex short-run Phillips curve may be a more accurate representation of reality than the traditionally used linear...

This paper explores the concept of underlying inflation and the properties of various measures of underlying inflation in the Australian context. Underlying inflation measures are routinely calculated and monitored by central banks in many countries, including the Reserve Bank of Australia....

Ball and Sheridan (forthcoming) show that OECD countries with a history of high inflation before the 1990s have subsequently experienced a larger degree of disinflation than countries with a history of low inflation. They label this process ‘regression to the mean’, and argue that it...