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Inflation: do expectations trump the gap?

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Author Info
Jeremy M. Piger
Robert H. Rasche

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Abstract

We measure the relative contribution of the deviation of real activity from its equilibrium (the gap), “supply shock” variables, and long-horizon inflation forecasts for explaining the U.S. inflation rate in the post-war period. For alternative specifications for the inflation driving process and measures of inflation and the gap we reach a similar conclusion: the contribution of changes in long-horizon inflation forecasts dominates that for the gap and supply shock variables. Put another way, variation in long-horizon inflation forecasts explains the bulk of the movement in realized inflation. Further, we find evidence that long-horizon forecasts have become substantially less volatile over the sample period, suggesting that permanent shocks to the inflation rate have moderated. Finally, we use our preferred specification for the inflation driving process to compute a history of model-based forecasts of the inflation rate. For both short and long horizons these forecasts are close to inflation expectations in surveys and market data.

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Paper provided by Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis in its series Working Papers with number 2006-013.

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Date of creation: 2006
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Handle: RePEc:fip:fedlwp:2006-013

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Keywords: Government securities ; Inflation (Finance);

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Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
  1. Gordon, Robert J, 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. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  2. Robert J. Gordon, 1998. "Foundations of the Goldilocks Economy: Supply Shocks and the Time-Varying NAIRU," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 29(1998-2), pages 297-346. [Downloadable!]
  3. Stock, James H. & Watson, Mark W., 1999. "Forecasting inflation," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(2), pages 293-335, October. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  4. Todd E. Clark & Michael W. McCracken, 2003. "The predictive content of the output gap for inflation : resolving in-sample and out-of-sample evidence," Research Working Paper RWP 03-06, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City. [Downloadable!]
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  5. Kozicki, Sharon & Hoffman, Barak, 2004. "Rounding Error: A Distorting Influence on Index Data," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 36(3), pages 319-38, June.
  6. Orphanides, Athanasios & van Norden, Simon, 2005. "The Reliability of Inflation Forecasts Based on Output Gap Estimates in Real Time," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 37(3), pages 583-601, June.
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  7. Andrew T. Levin & Jeremy M. Piger, 2003. "Is inflation persistence intrinsic in industrial economies?," Working Papers 2002-023, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. [Downloadable!]
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  8. Andrew Atkeson & Lee E. Ohanian., 2001. "Are Phillips curves useful for forecasting inflation?," Quarterly Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, issue Win, pages 2-11. [Downloadable!]
  9. Robert J. Gordon, 1982. "Inflation, Flexible Exchange Rates, and the Natural Rate of Unemployment," NBER Working Papers 0708, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Kevin J. Lansing, 2006. "Time-Varying U.S. Inflation Dynamics and the New Keynesian Phillips Curve," Computing in Economics and Finance 2006 488, Society for Computational Economics. [Downloadable!]
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  2. Todd E. Clark & Troy Davig, 2008. "An empirical assessment of the relationships among inflation and short- and long-term expectations," Research Working Paper RWP 08-05, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City. [Downloadable!]
  3. Kitov, Ivan, 2009. "The anti-Phillips curve," MPRA Paper 13641, University Library of Munich, Germany. [Downloadable!]
  4. Alberto Musso & Livio Stracca & Dick van Dijk, 2007. "Instability and nonlinearity in the Euro area Phillips curve," Working Paper Series 811, European Central Bank. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  5. Daniel L. Thornton, 2008. "Monetary policy: why money matters and interest rates don't," Working Papers 2008-011, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. [Downloadable!]
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