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....

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...

In U.S. data, inflation and output are negatively related in the long run. A Bayesian VAR with stochastic trends generalized to be piecewise linear provides robust reduced-form evidence in favor of a threshold level of trend inflation of around 4%, below which potential output is independent of...

Inflation is a monetary policy outcome, but in the short to medium term, price and wage decisions are co-determined by the public and private sectors. Many central banks have adopted transparency as a strategic policy approach, whereby communication of monetary policy goals is used as a public...

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...

This paper presents the novel implications of introducing price rigidities into a model of good-specific habit formation, for the response of private consumption following a positive government spending shock. With 'deep' habits in demand, the price elasticity of demand rises after the fiscal...

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...

We derive and estimate a New Keynesian Phillips curve (NKPC) in a model where consumers are assumed to have deep habits. Habits are deep in the sense that they apply to individual consumption goods instead of aggregate consumption. This alters the NKPC in a fundamental manner as it introduces...

We estimate a time-varying parameter VAR (TVP-VAR) with stochastic volatility using post- WWII U.S. data to study the effects of uncertainty shocks on inflation. We find the response of inflation to be statistically insignificant until mid-to-late 1990s and negative thereafter. Our findings...

This paper examines the demographic determinants of inflation expectations in South Africa. Five surveys covering the period 2006-2016, and consisting of over 12000 observations were empirically examined using time series, cross-sectional, censored and quantile regressions. We assess whether...