IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/ecinqu/v63y2025i3p926-944.html

The intermittent Phillips curve: Finding a stable (but persistence‐dependent) Phillips curve model specification

Author

Listed:
  • Richard Ashley
  • Randal Verbrugge

Abstract

We make substantial progress on understanding the Phillips curve, yielding important monetary policy implications. Inflation responds differently to persistent versus moderately persistent (or transient) fluctuations in the unemployment gap. This persistence‐dependent relationship aligns with business‐cycle stages, and is consistent with existing theory. Previous work fails to model this dependence, thereby finding the numerous “inflation puzzles”—for example, missing inflation/disinflation—noted in the literature. Our specification eliminates these puzzles; for example, the Phillips curve has not weakened; inflation's post‐2012 slow upward trudge was predictable. The model's coefficients are stable, and it provides accurate out‐of‐sample conditional recursive forecasts through the Great Recession and recovery.

Suggested Citation

  • Richard Ashley & Randal Verbrugge, 2025. "The intermittent Phillips curve: Finding a stable (but persistence‐dependent) Phillips curve model specification," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 63(3), pages 926-944, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:ecinqu:v:63:y:2025:i:3:p:926-944
    DOI: 10.1111/ecin.13281
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/ecin.13281
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/ecin.13281?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Filippo Occhino, 2019. "The Flattening of the Phillips Curve: Policy Implications Depend on the Cause," Economic Commentary, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, issue July.
    2. Michael Dotsey & Shigeru Fujita & Tom Stark, 2018. "Do Phillips Curves Conditionally Help to Forecast Inflation?," International Journal of Central Banking, International Journal of Central Banking, vol. 14(4), pages 43-92, September.
    3. Grant, Angelia L. & Chan, Joshua C.C., 2017. "Reconciling output gaps: Unobserved components model and Hodrick–Prescott filter," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 114-121.
    4. Chacko George & Florian Kuhn, 2019. "Business Cycle Implications of Capacity Constraints under Demand Shocks," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 32, pages 94-121, April.
    5. Ashley, Richard, 1984. "A Simple Test for Regression Parameter Instability," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 22(2), pages 253-268, April.
    6. Philippe Goulet Coulombe & Maxime Leroux & Dalibor Stevanovic & Stéphane Surprenant, 2022. "How is machine learning useful for macroeconomic forecasting?," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 37(5), pages 920-964, August.
    7. Clark, Todd E. & Doh, Taeyoung, 2014. "Evaluating alternative models of trend inflation," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 30(3), pages 426-448.
    8. Inoue, Atsushi & Rossi, Barbara & Wang, Yiru, 2024. "Has the Phillips Curve Flattened?," CEPR Discussion Papers 18846, Centre for Economic Policy Research.
    9. James H. Stock & Mark W. Watson, 2007. "Erratum to "Why Has U.S. Inflation Become Harder to Forecast?"," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 39(7), pages 1849-1849, October.
    10. Douglas Laxton & Guy Meredith & David Rose, 1995. "Asymmetric Effects of Economic Activity on Inflation: Evidence and Policy Implications," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 42(2), pages 344-374, June.
    11. Rossi, Barbara & Sekhposyan, Tatevik, 2010. "Have economic models' forecasting performance for US output growth and inflation changed over time, and when?," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 26(4), pages 808-835, October.
    12. Sune Karlsson & Pär Österholm, 2023. "Is the US Phillips curve stable? Evidence from Bayesian vector autoregressions," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 125(1), pages 287-314, January.
    13. 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.
    14. Raffaella Giacomini & Barbara Rossi, 2010. "Forecast comparisons in unstable environments," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 25(4), pages 595-620.
    15. Richard Blundell & Hamish Low & Ian Preston, 2013. "Decomposing changes in income risk using consumption data," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 4(1), pages 1-37, March.
    16. Laurence Ball & Sandeep Mazumder, 2019. "A Phillips Curve with Anchored Expectations and Short‐Term Unemployment," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 51(1), pages 111-137, February.
    17. George-Marios Angeletos & Fabrice Collard & Harris Dellas, 2020. "Business-Cycle Anatomy," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 110(10), pages 3030-3070, October.
    18. Hall, Robert E. & Kudlyak, Marianna, 2022. "The unemployed with jobs and without jobs," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    19. Annalisa Cristini & Piero Ferri, 2021. "Nonlinear models of the Phillips curve," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 31(4), pages 1129-1155, September.
    20. Hansen, Bruce E., 1992. "Testing for parameter instability in linear models," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 14(4), pages 517-533, August.
    21. Paul Beaudry & Dana Galizia & Franck Portier, 2020. "Putting the Cycle Back into Business Cycle Analysis," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 110(1), pages 1-47, January.
    22. Lawrence J. Christiano & Terry J. Fitzgerald, 2003. "The Band Pass Filter," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 44(2), pages 435-465, May.
    23. James Morley & Jeremy Piger, 2012. "The Asymmetric Business Cycle," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 94(1), pages 208-221, February.
    24. Donayre, Luiggi & Panovska, Irina, 2016. "Nonlinearities in the U.S. wage Phillips curve," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 19-43.
    25. Albuquerque, Bruno & Baumann, Ursel, 2017. "Will US inflation awake from the dead? The role of slack and non-linearities in the Phillips curve," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 39(2), pages 247-271.
    26. James H. Stock & Mark W. Watson, 2020. "Slack and Cyclically Sensitive Inflation," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 52(S2), pages 393-428, December.
    27. 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.
    28. James D. Hamilton, 2018. "Why You Should Never Use the Hodrick-Prescott Filter," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 100(5), pages 831-843, December.
    29. Carola Binder & Wesley Janson & Randal Verbrugge, 2023. "Out of Bounds: Do SPF Respondents Have Anchored Inflation Expectations?," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 55(2-3), pages 559-576, March.
    30. Xu, Qifa & Niu, Xufeng & Jiang, Cuixia & Huang, Xue, 2015. "The Phillips curve in the US: A nonlinear quantile regression approach," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 186-197.
    31. Andrews, Donald W K & Ploberger, Werner, 1994. "Optimal Tests When a Nuisance Parameter Is Present Only under the Alternative," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 62(6), pages 1383-1414, November.
    32. Richard Ashley & Kwok Ping Tsang & Randal Verbrugge, 2020. "A new look at historical monetary policy (and the great inflation) through the lens of a persistence-dependent policy rule," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 72(3), pages 672-691.
    33. Sebastian Heise & Fatih Karahan & Ayşegül Şahin, 2022. "The Missing Inflation Puzzle: The Role of the Wage‐Price Pass‐Through," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 54(S1), pages 7-51, February.
    34. Luengo-Prado, María José & Rao, Nikhil & Sheremirov, Viacheslav, 2018. "Sectoral inflation and the Phillips curve: What has changed since the Great Recession?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 172(C), pages 63-68.
    35. Verbrugge, Randal & Zaman, Saeed, 2023. "The hard road to a soft landing: Evidence from a (modestly) nonlinear structural model," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 123(C).
    36. James B. Bullard, 2017. "Does Low Unemployment Signal a Meaningful Rise in Inflation?," The Regional Economist, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, vol. 25(3).
    37. Randal Verbrugge, 2022. "Is it Time to Reassess the Focal Role of Core PCE Inflation in Assessing the Trend in PCE Inflation?," Revista Economía, Fondo Editorial - Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, vol. 45(89), pages 73-101.
    38. Clark, Todd E. & McCracken, Michael W., 2006. "The Predictive Content of the Output Gap for Inflation: Resolving In-Sample and Out-of-Sample Evidence," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 38(5), pages 1127-1148, August.
    39. 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.
    40. Simon Gilchrist & Raphael Schoenle & Jae Sim & Egon Zakrajšek, 2017. "Inflation Dynamics during the Financial Crisis," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(3), pages 785-823, March.
    41. 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.
    42. Sungki Hong, 2019. "Customer Capital, Markup Cyclicality, and Amplification," 2019 Meeting Papers 959, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    43. Pakko, Michael R, 2000. "The Cyclical Relationship between Output and Prices: An Analysis in the Frequency Domain," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 32(3), pages 382-399, August.
    44. Marcelo C. Medeiros & Gabriel F. R. Vasconcelos & Álvaro Veiga & Eduardo Zilberman, 2021. "Forecasting Inflation in a Data-Rich Environment: The Benefits of Machine Learning Methods," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 39(1), pages 98-119, January.
    45. Todd E. Clark, 2014. "The Importance of Trend Inflation in the Search for Missing Disinflation," Economic Commentary, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, issue Aug.
    46. Susanto Basu & Christopher L. House, 2016. "Allocative and Remitted Wages: New Facts and Challenges for Keynesian Models," NBER Working Papers 22279, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    47. Huh, Hyeon-seung & Jang, Inwon, 2007. "Nonlinear Phillips curve, sacrifice ratio, and the natural rate of unemployment," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 24(5), pages 797-813, September.
    48. James H. Stock & Mark W. Watson, 2007. "Why Has U.S. Inflation Become Harder to Forecast?," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 39(s1), pages 3-33, February.
    49. Donald W. K. Andrews, 2003. "Tests for Parameter Instability and Structural Change with Unknown Change Point: A Corrigendum," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 71(1), pages 395-397, January.
    50. Verbrugge, Randal & Zaman, Saeed, 2024. "Improving inflation forecasts using robust measures," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 40(2), pages 735-745.
    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. Lara Loewenstein & Hugh Montag & Randal Verbrugge, 2026. "Nonresponse Imputations and Related Measurement Issues in the CPI for Shelter," NBER Chapters, in: Measurement of Housing and the Housing Sector, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    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. Richard Ashley & Randal J. Verbrugge, 2019. "The Intermittent Phillips Curve: Finding a Stable (But Persistence-Dependent) Phillips Curve Model Specification," Working Papers 19-09R2, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, revised 14 Feb 2023.
    2. Verbrugge, Randal & Zaman, Saeed, 2023. "The hard road to a soft landing: Evidence from a (modestly) nonlinear structural model," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 123(C).
    3. Bańbura, Marta & Bobeica, Elena, 2023. "Does the Phillips curve help to forecast euro area inflation?," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 364-390.
    4. Randal Verbrugge & Saeed Zaman, 2024. "Post‐COVID inflation dynamics: Higher for longer," Journal of Forecasting, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 43(4), pages 871-893, July.
    5. Manuel M. F. Martins & Fabio Verona, 2024. "Forecasting Inflation with the New Keynesian Phillips Curve: Frequencies Matter," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 86(4), pages 811-832, August.
    6. Conti, Antonio M., 2021. "Resurrecting the Phillips Curve in Low-Inflation Times," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 96(C), pages 172-195.
    7. Shovon Sengupta & Tanujit Chakraborty & Sunny Kumar Singh, 2024. "Forecasting CPI inflation under economic policy and geopolitical uncertainties," Post-Print hal-05056934, HAL.
    8. Shovon Sengupta & Bhanu Pratap & Amit Pawar, 2025. "Non-linear Phillips Curve for India: Evidence from Explainable Machine Learning," Papers 2504.05350, arXiv.org.
    9. Guido Ascari & Luca Fosso, 2021. "The Inflation Rate Disconnect Puzzle: On the International Component of Trend Inflation and the Flattening of the Phillips Curve," Working Paper 2021/17, Norges Bank.
    10. Barkan, Oren & Benchimol, Jonathan & Caspi, Itamar & Cohen, Eliya & Hammer, Allon & Koenigstein, Noam, 2023. "Forecasting CPI inflation components with Hierarchical Recurrent Neural Networks," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 39(3), pages 1145-1162.
    11. Kishaba, Yui & Okuda, Tatsushi, 2025. "The slope of the Phillips curve for service prices in Japan: Regional panel data approach," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    12. Panovska, Irina & Ramamurthy, Srikanth, 2022. "Decomposing the output gap with inflation learning," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 136(C).
    13. Bańbura, Marta & Leiva-León, Danilo & Menz, Jan-Oliver, 2021. "Do inflation expectations improve model-based inflation forecasts?," Discussion Papers 48/2021, Deutsche Bundesbank.
    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. Alessandro Barbarino & Travis J. Berge & Andrea Stella, 2024. "The stability and economic relevance of output gap estimates," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 39(6), pages 1065-1081, September.
    16. Dur, Ayşe & Martínez García, Enrique, 2020. "Mind the gap!—A monetarist view of the open-economy Phillips curve," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 117(C).
    17. Inoue, Atsushi & Rossi, Barbara & Wang, Yiru, 2024. "Has the Phillips Curve Flattened?," CEPR Discussion Papers 18846, Centre for Economic Policy Research.
    18. Ascari, Guido & Fosso, Luca, 2024. "The international dimension of trend inflation," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 148(C).
    19. Sengupta, Shovon & Chakraborty, Tanujit & Singh, Sunny Kumar, 2025. "Forecasting CPI inflation under economic policy and geopolitical uncertainties," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 41(3), pages 953-981.
    20. Jørgensen, Peter Lihn & Lansing, Kevin J., 2025. "Anchored inflation expectations and the slope of the Phillips curve," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 178(C).

    More about this item

    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:bla:ecinqu:v:63:y:2025:i:3:p:926-944. 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/weaaaea.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.