We analyse a cointegrated VAR comprising UK data on consumer prices, unit labour costs, import prices and real consumption growth. The nominal variables, treated as I(2) here, form a linearly homogeneous relation, suggesting a transformation of the system to one comprising inflation and relative...

Standard open economy models predict that openness to trade should exert a positive effect on the slope of the output-inflation tradeoff, or Phillips curve, but such a proposition finds very little support in the existing empirical literature. We propose a new test of this hypothesis based on...

A number of thoretical models predict that the slope of the Phillips curve increases with trade openness, but cross-country studies provide little evidence for such a correlation. We highlight two reasons for this finding. Firstly, the strength of the relationship may depend on the extent of...

Recent decades have seen a considerable expansion of global trade and a simultaneous decline in inflation volatility. This paper investigates whether greater openness to trade helps achieve inflation stability. Using panel data for a sample of developing and industrial countries over the period...

An empirical analysis of the impact of labour market structures on the response of inflation to macroeconomic shocks is presented. Results based on a 20 country panel show that if labour market coordination is high, the effect on inflation of movements in unemployment, import prices, tax rates...

Equilibrium correction models of the price level are often used to model inflation. Such models assume that the long-run markup of prices over costs is fixed, but this may not be true for the Euro area economy, which has undergone major structural reforms over the last 25 years. We allow for...