IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/boc/bocoec/415.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Does the Time-Consistency Problem Explain the Behavior of Inflation in the United States?

Author

Listed:
  • Peter N. Ireland

    (Boston College)

Abstract

This paper derives the restrictions imposed by Barro and Gordon's theory of time-consistent monetary policy on a bivariate time-series model for inflation and unemployment and tests those restrictions using quarterly US data from 1960 through 1997. The results show that the data are consistent with the theory's implications for the long-run behavior of the two variables, indicating that the theory can explain inflation's initial rise and subsequent fall over the past four decades. The results also suggest that the theory must be extended to account more fully for the short-run dynamics that appear in the data.

Suggested Citation

  • Peter N. Ireland, 1998. "Does the Time-Consistency Problem Explain the Behavior of Inflation in the United States?," Boston College Working Papers in Economics 415, Boston College Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:boc:bocoec:415
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://fmwww.bc.edu/EC-P/wp415.pdf
    File Function: main text
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: http://fmwww.bc.edu/EC-P/wp415.zip
    File Function: data and programs
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Peter C.B. Phillips & Pierre Perron, 1986. "Testing for a Unit Root in Time Series Regression," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 795R, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University, revised Sep 1987.
    2. Pierre Perron & Serena Ng, 1996. "Useful Modifications to some Unit Root Tests with Dependent Errors and their Local Asymptotic Properties," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 63(3), pages 435-463.
    3. Barro, Robert J & Gordon, David B, 1983. "A Positive Theory of Monetary Policy in a Natural Rate Model," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 91(4), pages 589-610, August.
    4. Christina D. Romer & David H. Romer, 1997. "Reducing Inflation: Motivation and Strategy," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number rome97-1, May.
    5. Robert J. Gordon, 1997. "The Time-Varying NAIRU and Its Implications for Economic Policy," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 11(1), pages 11-32, Winter.
    6. Blackburn, Keith & Christensen, Michael, 1989. "Monetary Policy and Policy Credibility: Theories and Evidence," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 27(1), pages 1-45, March.
    7. Andrews, Donald W K, 1991. "Heteroskedasticity and Autocorrelation Consistent Covariance Matrix Estimation," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 59(3), pages 817-858, May.
    8. 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.
    9. Phillips, P C B, 1987. "Time Series Regression with a Unit Root," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 55(2), pages 277-301, March.
    10. Thomas Sargent & Noah Williams & Tao Zha, 2009. "The Conquest of South American Inflation," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 117(2), pages 211-256, April.
    11. Broadbent, Ben & Barro, Robert J., 1997. "Central bank preferences and macroeconomic equilibrium," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 17-43, June.
    12. Douglas O. Staiger & James H. Stock & Mark W. Watson, 1997. "How Precise Are Estimates of the Natural Rate of Unemployment?," NBER Chapters, in: Reducing Inflation: Motivation and Strategy, pages 195-246, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Baxter, Marianne, 1988. "Toward an empirical assessment of game-theoretic models of policymaking : A comment," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 28(1), pages 141-151, January.
    14. Phillips, Peter C B & Ouliaris, S, 1990. "Asymptotic Properties of Residual Based Tests for Cointegration," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 58(1), pages 165-193, January.
    15. Johansen, Soren, 1988. "Statistical analysis of cointegration vectors," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 12(2-3), pages 231-254.
    16. King, Robert G. & Watson, Mark W., 1994. "The post-war U.S. phillips curve: a revisionist econometric history," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 41(1), pages 157-219, December.
    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. Nima Nonejad, 2013. "Time-Consistency Problem and the Behavior of US Inflation from 1970 to 2008," CREATES Research Papers 2013-25, Department of Economics and Business Economics, Aarhus University.
    2. David I. Stern & Robert K. Kaufmann, 1997. "Time series properties of global climate variables: detection and attribution of climate change," Working Papers in Ecological Economics 9702, Australian National University, Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies, Ecological Economics Program.
    3. Vicente Esteve, 2004. "Política fiscal y productividad del trabajo en la economía española: un análisis de series temporales," Revista de Analisis Economico – Economic Analysis Review, Universidad Alberto Hurtado/School of Economics and Business, vol. 19(1), pages 3-29, June.
    4. Engel, Charles, 2000. "Long-run PPP may not hold after all," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(2), pages 243-273, August.
    5. Stern, David I., 2000. "A multivariate cointegration analysis of the role of energy in the US macroeconomy," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(2), pages 267-283, April.
    6. Minxian, Yang, 1998. "System estimators of cointegrating matrix in absence of normalising information," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 85(2), pages 317-337, August.
    7. Hirukawa, Masayuki, 2023. "Robust Covariance Matrix Estimation in Time Series: A Review," Econometrics and Statistics, Elsevier, vol. 27(C), pages 36-61.
    8. Volker Wieland, "undated". "Monetary Policy and Uncertainty about the Natural Unemployment Rate," Computing in Economics and Finance 1997 11, Society for Computational Economics.
    9. Robert Amano & Tony S. Wirjanto, "undated". "A Further Analysis of Exchange Rate Targeting in Canada," Staff Working Papers 94-2, Bank of Canada.
    10. H. Youn Kim & Junsoo Lee, 2001. "Quasi-fixed inputs and long-run equilibrium in production: a cointegration analysis," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 16(1), pages 41-57.
    11. Ye Cai & Mototsugu Shintani, 2005. "On the Long-Run Variance Ratio Test for a Unit Root," Vanderbilt University Department of Economics Working Papers 0506, Vanderbilt University Department of Economics.
    12. Rangan Gupta & Josine Uwilingiye, 2010. "Dynamic Time Inconsistency And The South African Reserve Bank," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 78(1), pages 76-88, March.
    13. Martin Wagner & Jaroslava Hlouskova, 2010. "The Performance of Panel Cointegration Methods: Results from a Large Scale Simulation Study," Econometric Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 29(2), pages 182-223, April.
    14. Robert Amano & Tony S. Wirjanto, "undated". "The Dynamic Behaviour of Canadian Imports and the Linear-Quadratic Model: Evidence Based on the Euler Equation," Staff Working Papers 94-6, Bank of Canada.
    15. Hasan Bakhshi & Anthony Yates, 1998. "Are UK inflation expectations rational?," Bank of England working papers 81, Bank of England.
    16. van Amano, Robert A & Norden, Simon, 1998. "Exchange Rates and Oil Prices," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 6(4), pages 683-694, November.
    17. Isabel Cortés-Jiménez & Manuel Artís, 2005. "The role of the tourism sector in economic development - Lessons from the Spanish experience," ERSA conference papers ersa05p488, European Regional Science Association.
    18. Gregory, Allan W. & Hansen, Bruce E., 1996. "Residual-based tests for cointegration in models with regime shifts," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 70(1), pages 99-126, January.
    19. Kwiatkowski, Denis & Phillips, Peter C. B. & Schmidt, Peter & Shin, Yongcheol, 1992. "Testing the null hypothesis of stationarity against the alternative of a unit root : How sure are we that economic time series have a unit root?," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 54(1-3), pages 159-178.
    20. Frédérique Bec & Mélika Ben Salem & Marine Carrasco, 2010. "Detecting Mean Reversion in Real Exchange Rates from a Multiple Regime star Model," Annals of Economics and Statistics, GENES, issue 99-100, pages 395-427.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Time-consistency; Inflation; Unemployment;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E31 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Price Level; Inflation; Deflation
    • E52 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Monetary Policy
    • E61 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Policy Objectives; Policy Designs and Consistency; Policy Coordination

    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:boc:bocoec:415. 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: Christopher F Baum (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/debocus.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.