IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/bis/biswps/1054.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Inflation risk and the labor market: beneath the surface of a flat Phillips curve

Author

Listed:
  • Sirio Aramonte

Abstract

While the Phillips curve appeared quiescent after the Great Financial Crisis (GFC), inflation risk, as gauged from option prices, remained sensitive to employment dynamics. Using Phillips-curve regressions centered on option-implied moments, I show that, in tight labor markets, a fall in the unemployment gap raises the risk that inflation overshoots expectations – even if realized and expected inflation remain stable. In tight labor markets, implied moments convey valuable information, as shown by their ability to anticipate future patterns in inflation breakevens and wage growth. The usefulness of inflation options in assessing risk, despite their illiquidity, is rooted in reputational incentives that dealers have to disseminate accurate quotes.

Suggested Citation

  • Sirio Aramonte, 2022. "Inflation risk and the labor market: beneath the surface of a flat Phillips curve," BIS Working Papers 1054, Bank for International Settlements.
    • Handle: RePEc:bis:biswps:1054
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.bis.org/publ/work1054.pdf
    File Function: Full PDF document
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.bis.org/publ/work1054.htm
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Barnichon, Regis & Mesters, Geert, 2021. "The Phillips multiplier," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 689-705.
    2. Machin, Stephen J & Wadhwani, Sushil, 1991. "The Effects of Unions on Organisational Change and Employment," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 101(407), pages 835-854, July.
    3. Kitsul, Yuriy & Wright, Jonathan H., 2013. "The economics of options-implied inflation probability density functions," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 110(3), pages 696-711.
    4. Thomas M. Mertens & John C. Williams, 2021. "What to Expect from the Lower Bound on Interest Rates: Evidence from Derivatives Prices," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 111(8), pages 2473-2505, August.
    5. Christopher A. Pissarides, 1994. "Search Unemployment with On-the-job Search," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 61(3), pages 457-475.
    6. Olivier J. Blanchard, 1986. "The Wage Price Spiral," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 101(3), pages 543-565.
    7. Olivier Coibion & Yuriy Gorodnichenko, 2015. "Is the Phillips Curve Alive and Well after All? Inflation Expectations and the Missing Disinflation," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 7(1), pages 197-232, January.
    8. Laurence Ball & Sandeep Mazumder, 2011. "Inflation Dynamics and the Great Recession," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 42(1 (Spring), pages 337-405.
    9. Raphael A. Auer & Claudio Borio & Andrew Filardo, 2017. "The Globalisation of Inflation: The Growing Importance of Global Value Chains," CESifo Working Paper Series 6387, CESifo.
    10. Anna Stansbury & Lawrence H. Summers, 2020. "The Declining Worker Power Hypothesis: An Explanation for the Recent Evolution of the American Economy," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 51(1 (Spring), pages 1-96.
    11. Milgrom, Paul & Stokey, Nancy, 1982. "Information, trade and common knowledge," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 26(1), pages 17-27, February.
    12. Ait-Sahalia, Yacine & Duarte, Jefferson, 2003. "Nonparametric option pricing under shape restrictions," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 116(1-2), pages 9-47.
    13. Benoit Mojon & Xavier Ragot, 2020. "Can an ageing workforce explain low inflation?," BIS Papers chapters, in: Bank for International Settlements (ed.), Inflation dynamics in Asia and the Pacific, volume 111, pages 73-79, Bank for International Settlements.
    14. Tobin, James, 1972. "Inflation and Unemployment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 62(1), pages 1-18, March.
    15. Marianne Bertrand, 2004. "From the Invisible Handshake to the Invisible Hand? How Import Competition Changes the Employment Relationship," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 22(4), pages 723-766, October.
    16. Olivier Coibion & Yuriy Gorodnichenko & Rupal Kamdar, 2018. "The Formation of Expectations, Inflation, and the Phillips Curve," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 56(4), pages 1447-1491, December.
    17. Breeden, Douglas T & Litzenberger, Robert H, 1978. "Prices of State-contingent Claims Implicit in Option Prices," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 51(4), pages 621-651, October.
    18. Newey, Whitney & West, Kenneth, 2014. "A simple, positive semi-definite, heteroscedasticity and autocorrelation consistent covariance matrix," Applied Econometrics, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), vol. 33(1), pages 125-132.
    19. Stefan Nagel, 2016. "Long-Run Inflation Uncertainty," International Journal of Central Banking, International Journal of Central Banking, vol. 12(3), pages 207-217, September.
    20. Justin R. Pierce & Peter K. Schott, 2016. "The Surprisingly Swift Decline of US Manufacturing Employment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(7), pages 1632-1662, July.
    21. Chengsi Zhang, 2017. "The Great Globalization and Changing Inflation Dynamics," International Journal of Central Banking, International Journal of Central Banking, vol. 13(4), pages 191-226, December.
    22. Fabio Busetti & Michele Caivano & Lisa Rodano, 2015. "On the conditional distribution of euro area inflation forecast," Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) 1027, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    23. Ricardo Reis, 2020. "The People versus the Markets: A Parsimonious Model of Inflation Expectations," Discussion Papers 2033, Centre for Macroeconomics (CFM).
    24. Hooper, Peter & Mishkin, Frederic S. & Sufi, Amir, 2020. "Prospects for inflation in a high pressure economy: Is the Phillips curve dead or is it just hibernating?," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 74(1), pages 26-62.
    25. Michael McLeay & Silvana Tenreyro, 2020. "Optimal Inflation and the Identification of the Phillips Curve," NBER Macroeconomics Annual, University of Chicago Press, vol. 34(1), pages 199-255.
    26. Summers, Lawrence H, 1988. "Relative Wages, Efficiency Wages, and Keynesian Unemployment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 78(2), pages 383-388, May.
    27. Pedro Santa-Clara & Shu Yan, 2010. "Crashes, Volatility, and the Equity Premium: Lessons from S&P 500 Options," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 92(2), pages 435-451, May.
    28. Gizatulina, Alia & Hellman, Ziv, 2019. "No trade and yes trade theorems for heterogeneous priors," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 182(C), pages 161-184.
    29. George J. Borjas & Valerie A. Ramey, 1995. "Foreign Competition, Market Power, and Wage Inequality," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 110(4), pages 1075-1110.
    30. Mark W. Watson, 2014. "Inflation Persistence, the NAIRU, and the Great Recession," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(5), pages 31-36, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Aguiar-Conraria, Luís & Martins, Manuel M.F. & Soares, Maria Joana, 2023. "The Phillips curve at 65: Time for time and frequency," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 151(C).
    2. Jonathan H. Wright, 2023. "Breaks in the Phillips Curve: Evidence from Panel Data," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2023-015, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    3. Combes, Jean-Louis & Lesuisse, Pierre, 2022. "Inflation and unemployment, new insights during the EMU accession," International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 172(C), pages 124-142.
    4. Fabian Eser & Peter Karadi & Philip R. Lane & Laura Moretti & Chiara Osbat, 2020. "The Phillips Curve at the ECB," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 88(S1), pages 50-85, September.
    5. Hideaki Aoyama & Corrado Guilmi & Yoshi Fujiwara & Hiroshi Yoshikawa, 2022. "Dual labor market and the “Phillips curve puzzle”: the Japanese experience," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 32(5), pages 1419-1435, November.
    6. Alexander Doser & Ricardo Nunes & Nikhil Rao & Viacheslav Sheremirov, 2023. "Inflation expectations and nonlinearities in the Phillips curve," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 38(4), pages 453-471, June.
    7. Franz Xaver Zobl & Martin Ertl, 2021. "The Condemned Live Longer – New Evidence of the New Keynesian Phillips Curve in Central and Eastern Europe," Open Economies Review, Springer, vol. 32(4), pages 671-699, September.
    8. Thomas Hasenzagl & Filippo Pellegrino & Lucrezia Reichlin & Giovanni Ricco, 2022. "A Model of the Fed's View on Inflation," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 104(4), pages 686-704, October.
    9. Barnichon, Regis & Mesters, Geert, 2021. "The Phillips multiplier," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 689-705.
    10. Böhl, Gregor & Lieberknecht, Philipp, 2021. "The hockey stick Phillips curve and the zero lower bound," IMFS Working Paper Series 153, Goethe University Frankfurt, Institute for Monetary and Financial Stability (IMFS).
    11. Arai, Natsuki, 2023. "The FOMC’s new individual economic projections and macroeconomic theories," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 151(C).
    12. Simon Gilchrist & Egon Zakrajšek, 2020. "Trade Exposure and the Evolution of Inflation Dynamics," Central Banking, Analysis, and Economic Policies Book Series, in: Gonzalo Castex & Jordi Galí & Diego Saravia (ed.),Changing Inflation Dynamics,Evolving Monetary Policy, edition 1, volume 27, chapter 6, pages 173-226, Central Bank of Chile.
    13. Annalisa Cristini & Piero Ferri, 2021. "Nonlinear models of the Phillips curve," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 31(4), pages 1129-1155, September.
    14. Drago Bergholt & Francesco Furlanetto & Etienne Vaccaro-Grange, 2023. "Did monetary policy kill the Phillips Curve? Some simple arithmetics," Working Paper 2023/2, Norges Bank.
    15. Böhl, Gregor & Lieberknecht, Philipp, 2021. "The hockey stick Phillips curve and the effective lower bound," Discussion Papers 55/2021, Deutsche Bundesbank.
    16. Kabundi, Alain & Poon, Aubrey & Wu, Ping, 2023. "A time-varying Phillips curve with global factors: Are global factors important?," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 126(C).
    17. Janice C. Eberly & James H. Stock & Jonathan H. Wright, 2020. "The Federal Reserve's Current Framework for Monetary Policy: A Review and Assessment," International Journal of Central Banking, International Journal of Central Banking, vol. 16(1), pages 5-71, February.
    18. Martins, Manuel M.F. & Verona, Fabio, 2023. "Inflation dynamics in the frequency domain," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 231(C).
    19. Òscar Jordà & Fernanda Nechio, 2020. "Inflation Globally," Central Banking, Analysis, and Economic Policies Book Series, in: Gonzalo Castex & Jordi Galí & Diego Saravia (ed.),Changing Inflation Dynamics,Evolving Monetary Policy, edition 1, volume 27, chapter 8, pages 269-316, Central Bank of Chile.
    20. Aginta, Harry, 2023. "Revisiting the Phillips curve for Indonesia: What can we learn from regional data?," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    inflation expectations; inflation risk; inflation options; labor market;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates
    • G14 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Information and Market Efficiency; Event Studies; Insider Trading
    • G23 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Non-bank Financial Institutions; Financial Instruments; Institutional Investors

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bis:biswps:1054. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Christian Beslmeisl (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/bisssch.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.