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The Role of Wages in Trend Inflation: Back to the 1980s?

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Abstract

This paper examines whether the measurement of trend inflation can be improved by using wage data in a dynamic factor model of disaggregated prices and wages for the United States. The model features time-varying coefficients and stochastic volatility. An estimate of trend inflation is a time-varying distributed lag of prices and wages, where the weight on a series depends on its time-varying volatility, persistence, and comovement with other series. The results show that wages inform estimates of trend inflation. The weight on wages was highest around 1980, drifted down through the 2000s, and returned to its 1980s value by 2022. In addition, inflation in the 2020s appears to have unmoored moderately from the 2 percent range that prevailed for decades, as the role of the persistent component of inflation increased in recent year. However, accounting for wages lowers the model's view of the increase in the volatility of trend inflation.

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  • Michael T. Kiley, 2023. "The Role of Wages in Trend Inflation: Back to the 1980s?," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2023-022, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedgfe:2023-22
    DOI: 10.17016/FEDS.2023.022
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. 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.
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    3. Rhys M. Bidder, 2015. "Are wages useful in forecasting price inflation?," FRBSF Economic Letter, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
    4. Ekaterina V. Peneva & Jeremy B. Rudd, 2017. "The Passthrough of Labor Costs to Price Inflation," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 49(8), pages 1777-1802, December.
    5. Martín Almuzara & Argia M. Sbordone, 2022. "Inflation Persistence: How Much Is There and Where Is It Coming From?," Liberty Street Economics 20220420, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    6. Faust, Jon & Wright, Jonathan H., 2013. "Forecasting Inflation," Handbook of Economic Forecasting, in: G. Elliott & C. Granger & A. Timmermann (ed.), Handbook of Economic Forecasting, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 2-56, Elsevier.
    7. Elmar Mertens, 2016. "Measuring the Level and Uncertainty of Trend Inflation," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 98(5), pages 950-967, December.
    8. Gregory D. Hess & Mark E. Schweitzer, 2000. "Does wage inflation cause price inflation?," Policy Discussion Papers, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, issue Apr.
    9. Michael T. Kiley, 2008. "Estimating the common trend rate of inflation for consumer prices and consumer prices excluding food and energy prices," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2008-38, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    10. Andrew Atkeson & Lee E. Ohanian, 2001. "Are Phillips curves useful for forecasting inflation?," Quarterly Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, vol. 25(Win), pages 2-11.
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    Cited by:

    1. Richard Audoly & Martín Almuzara & Davide Melcangi, 2023. "A Measure of Core Wage Inflation," Staff Reports 1067, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Price Inflation; Wage Inflation; Unobserved Components Model; Factor Model;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E37 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Forecasting and Simulation: Models and Applications
    • E31 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Price Level; Inflation; Deflation
    • C32 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Multiple or Simultaneous Equation Models; Multiple Variables - - - Time-Series Models; Dynamic Quantile Regressions; Dynamic Treatment Effect Models; Diffusion Processes; State Space Models

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