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....

Two reduced-form versions of New Keynesian wage Phillips curves based on either sticky nominal wages or real-wage rigidity using monthly US state-level data for the period 1982-2016 are examined, taking account of the endogeneity of unemployment by instrumentation and the use of common...

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...

Inflation expectations play a key role in determining future economic outcomes. The associated uncertainty provides a direct gauge of how well-anchored the inflation expectations are. We construct a model-based measure of inflation expectations uncertainty by augmenting a standard unobserved...

This paper estimates a New Keynesian model with trend inflation and contrasts Taylor rules featuring fixed versus time-varying inflation target while allowing for passive monetary policy. The estimation is conducted over the Great Inflation and the Great Moderation periods. Time-varying...

Analysis of the Michigan Survey data confirms U.S. inflation expectations are not perfectly anchored in the event of an oil price shock. Two key results emerge through counterfactual analysis. First, better anchoring of inflation expectations can ameliorate the mild inflation impact which occurs...

This paper generalizes the popular stochastic volatility in mean model of Koopman and Hol Uspensky (2002) to allow for time-varying parameters in the conditional mean. The estimation of this extension is nontrival since the volatility appears in both the conditional mean and the conditional...

Habit persistence at the level of individual goods varieties can explain incomplete exchange rate pass-through to international prices. Deep habits give rise to a dynamic import demand function that leads to import price markup adjustments, independently of nominal pricing frictions. Augmenting...

Low inflation was once a welcome to both policy makers and the public. However, Japan’s experience during the 1990’s changed the consensus view on price of economists and central banks around the world. Facing deflation and zero interest bound at the same time, Bank of Japan had difficulty...

We use novel survey data to study firms’ inventory contracts. We document facts about the usage of purchase and sale contracts. We find that firms purchase and sell inventory through three contractual arrangements: fixed price and quantity, fixed price only, and fixed quantity only. The former...