This paper argues that estimation of the Phillips curve for Japan should take account of the geographic dispersion of labor-market conditions. We find evidence that the relationship between wage inflation and the unemployment rate is convex. With such convexity, wage inflation can occur when...

This paper applies regime switching methods to the problem of measuring monetary policy. Policy preferences and structural factors are specified parametrically as independent Markov processes. Interaction between the structural and preference parameters in the policy rule serves to identify the...