IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/30116.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Comparing Past and Present Inflation

Author

Listed:
  • Marijn A. Bolhuis
  • Judd N. L. Cramer
  • Lawrence H. Summers

Abstract

There have been important methodological changes in the Consumer Price Index (CPI) over time. These distort comparisons of inflation from different periods, which have become more prevalent as inflation has risen to 40-year highs. To better contextualize the current run-up in inflation, this paper constructs new historical series for CPI headline and core inflation that are more consistent with current practices and expenditure shares for the post-war period. Using these series, we find that current inflation levels are much closer to past inflation peaks than the official series would suggest. In particular, the rate of core CPI disinflation caused by Volcker-era policies is significantly lower when measured using today’s treatment of housing: only 5 percentage points of decline instead of 11 percentage points in the official CPI statistics. To return to 2 percent core CPI inflation today will thus require nearly the same amount of disinflation as achieved under Chairman Volcker.

Suggested Citation

  • Marijn A. Bolhuis & Judd N. L. Cramer & Lawrence H. Summers, 2022. "Comparing Past and Present Inflation," NBER Working Papers 30116, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:30116
    Note: EFG ME
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w30116.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Òscar Jordà & Moritz Schularick & Alan M. Taylor, 2017. "Macrofinancial History and the New Business Cycle Facts," NBER Macroeconomics Annual, University of Chicago Press, vol. 31(1), pages 213-263.
    2. Richard Clarida & Jordi Galí & Mark Gertler, 2000. "Monetary Policy Rules and Macroeconomic Stability: Evidence and Some Theory," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 115(1), pages 147-180.
    3. John P. Shelton, 1968. "The Cost of Renting versus Owning a Home," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 44(1), pages 59-72.
    4. Allan H. Meltzer, 2006. "From Inflation to More Inflation, Disinflation, and Low Inflation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(2), pages 185-188, May.
    5. Vasco Carvalho & Xavier Gabaix, 2013. "The Great Diversification and Its Undoing," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(5), pages 1697-1727, August.
    6. Ha, Jongrim & Kose, M. Ayhan & Ohnsorge, Franziska, 2023. "One-stop source: A global database of inflation," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 137(C).
    7. Haque, Qazi & Groshenny, Nicolas & Weder, Mark, 2021. "Do we really know that U.S. monetary policy was destabilizing in the 1970s?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 131(C).
    8. David Baqaee & Emmanuel Farhi, 2022. "Supply and Demand in Disaggregated Keynesian Economies with an Application to the COVID-19 Crisis," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 112(5), pages 1397-1436, May.
    9. Goodfriend, Marvin & King, Robert G., 2005. "The incredible Volcker disinflation," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(5), pages 981-1015, July.
    10. Marijn A Bolhuis & Judd N L Cramer & Lawrence H Summers, 2022. "The Coming Rise in Residential Inflation [The repeat rent index]," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 26(5), pages 1051-1072.
    11. Timothy Cogley & Thomas J. Sargent, 2005. "The conquest of US inflation: Learning and robustness to model uncertainty," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 8(2), pages 528-563, April.
    12. Marina Gindelsky & Jeremy G. Moulton & Scott A. Wentland, 2020. "Valuing Housing Services in the Era of Big Data: A User Cost Approach Leveraging Zillow Microdata," NBER Chapters, in: Big Data for Twenty-First-Century Economic Statistics, pages 339-370, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Laopodis, Nikiforos T., 2013. "Monetary policy and stock market dynamics across monetary regimes," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 381-406.
    14. James B. Bullard, 2013. "CPI vs. PCE inflation: choosing a standard measure," The Regional Economist, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, issue July.
    15. Jonathon Hazell & Juan Herreño & Emi Nakamura & Jón Steinsson, 2022. "The Slope of the Phillips Curve: Evidence from U.S. States," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 137(3), pages 1299-1344.
    16. Seong-Hoon Kim & Seongman Moon & Carlos Velasco, 2017. "Delayed Overshooting: Is It an '80s Puzzle?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 125(5), pages 1570-1598.
    17. Boskin, Michael J & Jorgenson, Dale W, 1997. "Implications of Overstating Inflation for Indexing Government Programs and Understanding Economic Progress," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(2), pages 89-93, May.
    18. Michael F. Bryan & Brent Meyer, 2010. "Are some prices in the CPI more forward looking than others? We think so," Economic Commentary, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, vol. 2010(02), pages 1-6, May.
    19. Gillingham, Robert, 1983. "Measuring the Cost of Shelter for Homeowners: Theoretical and Empirical Considerations," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 65(2), pages 254-265, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Barrero, José María & Bloom, Nicholas & Davis, Steven J. & Meyer, Brent & Mihaylov, Emil, 2022. "The Shift to Remote Work Lessens Wage-Growth Pressures," IZA Discussion Papers 15385, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Laurence M. Ball & Mr. Daniel Leigh & Ms. Prachi Mishra, 2022. "Understanding U.S. Inflation During the COVID Era," IMF Working Papers 2022/208, International Monetary Fund.
    3. Marijn A Bolhuis & Judd N L Cramer & Lawrence H Summers, 2022. "The Coming Rise in Residential Inflation [The repeat rent index]," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 26(5), pages 1051-1072.
    4. 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.
    5. Ding, Shusheng & Zheng, Dandan & Cui, Tianxiang & Du, Min, 2023. "The oil price-inflation nexus: The exchange rate pass- through effect," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 125(C).
    6. Wildauer, Rafael & Kohler, Karsten & Aboobaker, Adam & Guschanski, Alexander, 2023. "Energy price shocks, conflict inflation, and income distribution in a three-sector model," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 127(PB).
    7. Pianta, Mario, 2023. "Inflation and distributive conflicts," MPRA Paper 119345, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    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. Alexandros Kontonikas & Alexandros Kostakis, 2013. "On Monetary Policy and Stock Market Anomalies," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 40(7-8), pages 1009-1042, September.
    2. Francesco Bianchi & Cosmin Ilut, 2017. "Monetary/Fiscal Policy Mix and Agent's Beliefs," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 26, pages 113-139, October.
    3. Pierpaolo Benigno & Gauti B. Eggertsson, 2023. "It’s Baaack: The Surge in Inflation in the 2020s and the Return of the Non-Linear Phillips Curve," NBER Working Papers 31197, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. 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.
    5. Mojon, Benoît, 2008. "When did unsystematic monetary policy have an effect on inflation?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 52(3), pages 487-497, April.
    6. Molnárová, Zuzana & Reiter, Michael, 2022. "Technology, demand, and productivity: What an industry model tells us about business cycles," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 134(C).
    7. Aurélien Goutsmedt, 2021. "From the Stagflation to the Great Inflation: Explaining the US economy of the 1970s," Revue d'économie politique, Dalloz, vol. 131(3), pages 557-582.
    8. Baeriswyl, Romain & Cornand, Camille, 2007. "Can Opacity of a Credible Central Bank Explain Excessive Inflation?," Discussion Papers in Economics 1376, University of Munich, Department of Economics.
    9. Daniel Rees, 2020. "What Comes Next?," BIS Working Papers 898, Bank for International Settlements.
    10. Armenter, Roc & Bodenstein, Martin, 2008. "Can The U.S. Monetary Policy Fall (Again) In An Expectation Trap?," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 12(5), pages 664-693, November.
    11. Marco Del Negro & Frank Schorfheide, 2009. "Monetary Policy Analysis with Potentially Misspecified Models," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(4), pages 1415-1450, September.
    12. Elton Beqiraj & Giuseppe Ciccarone & Giovanni Di Bartolomeo, 2022. "The U.S. Economic Dynamics and Inflation Persistence: a Regime-Switching Perspective," Working Papers in Public Economics 218, University of Rome La Sapienza, Department of Economics and Law.
    13. Canarella, Giorgio & Miller, Stephen M., 2017. "Inflation targeting and inflation persistence: New evidence from fractional integration and cointegration," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 45-62.
    14. Cantore, C. & Ferroni, F. & León-Ledesma, M A., 2011. "Interpreting the Hours-Technology time-varying relationship," Working papers 351, Banque de France.
    15. Francesco Bianchi & Leonardo Melosi, 2022. "Inflation as a Fiscal Limit," Working Paper Series WP 2022-37, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
    16. Haroon Mumtaz & Paolo Surico, 2009. "Time-varying yield curve dynamics and monetary policy," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 24(6), pages 895-913.
    17. Hatcher, Michael, 2022. "Solving linear rational expectations models in the presence of structural change: Some extensions," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 138(C).
    18. Francesco Bianchi & Leonardo Melosi, 2014. "Dormant Shocks and Fiscal Virtue," NBER Macroeconomics Annual, University of Chicago Press, vol. 28(1), pages 1-46.
    19. Travaglini, Guido, 2007. "The U.S. Dynamic Taylor Rule With Multiple Breaks, 1984-2001," MPRA Paper 3419, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 15 Jun 2007.
    20. Katrin Wölfel & Christoph S. Weber, 2017. "Searching for the Fed’s reaction function," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 52(1), pages 191-227, February.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • C43 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods: Special Topics - - - Index Numbers and Aggregation
    • E21 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Consumption; Saving; Wealth
    • E31 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Price Level; Inflation; Deflation
    • E37 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Forecasting and Simulation: Models and Applications

    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:nbr:nberwo:30116. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.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.