IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecanpo/v73y2022icp262-271.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Inflation dynamics in an emerging market: The case of South Africa

Author

Listed:
  • Dladla, Pholile
  • Malikane, Christopher

Abstract

The literature on the Phillips curve in South Africa finds little evidence of the effect of demand pressure on the inflation rate. Using quarterly data from 1960–2020, this paper shows that the Phillips curve exists in South Africa and the coefficient that relates the level of economic activity and inflation has been remarkably stable since the 1970s. We argue that the findings in the literature are due to mis-specification of the Phillips curve relationship and the inadequate consideration of key political events that shocked the South African labour market in the 1970s.

Suggested Citation

  • Dladla, Pholile & Malikane, Christopher, 2022. "Inflation dynamics in an emerging market: The case of South Africa," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 262-271.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecanpo:v:73:y:2022:i:c:p:262-271
    DOI: 10.1016/j.eap.2021.11.016
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0313592621001661
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.eap.2021.11.016?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
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kevin S. Nell, 2018. "Re‐Examining the Role of Structural Change and Nonlinearities in a Phillips Curve Model for South Africa," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 86(2), pages 173-196, June.
    2. Fuhrer, Jeffrey C, 1997. "The (Un)Importance of Forward-Looking Behavior in Price Specifications," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 29(3), pages 338-350, August.
    3. Rudd, Jeremy & Whelan, Karl, 2005. "New tests of the new-Keynesian Phillips curve," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(6), pages 1167-1181, September.
    4. Bajo-Rubio, Oscar & Diaz-Roldan, Carmen & Esteve, Vicente, 2007. "Change of regime and Phillips curve stability: The case of Spain, 1964-2002," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 29(3), pages 453-462.
    5. Fair, Ray C., 2008. "Testing price equations," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 52(8), pages 1424-1437, November.
    6. Stock, James H. & Watson, Mark W., 1999. "Forecasting inflation," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(2), pages 293-335, October.
    7. Galí, Jordi & Gertler, Mark, 1999. "Inflation Dynamics: A Structural Economic Analysis," CEPR Discussion Papers 2246, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    8. Stephane Dees & M. Hashem Pesaran & L. Vanessa Smith & Ron P. Smith, 2009. "Identification of New Keynesian Phillips Curves from a Global Perspective," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 41(7), pages 1481-1502, October.
    9. Kevin S. Nell, 2006. "Structural Change And Nonlinearities In A Phillips Curve Model For South Africa," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 24(4), pages 600-617, October.
    10. Behera, Harendra & Wahi, Garima & Kapur, Muneesh, 2018. "Phillips curve relationship in an emerging economy: Evidence from India," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 116-126.
    11. Atsuyoshi Morozumi & Michael Bleaney & Zakari Mumuni, 2020. "Inflation targeting in low‐income countries: Does IT work?," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(4), pages 1529-1550, November.
    12. James M. Nason & Gregor W. Smith, 2008. "Identifying the new Keynesian Phillips curve," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 23(5), pages 525-551.
    13. Kuttner, Ken & Robinson, Tim, 2010. "Understanding the flattening Phillips curve," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 21(2), pages 110-125, August.
    14. J.W. Fedderke & E. Schaling, 2005. "Modelling Inflation In South Africa: A Multivariate Cointegration Analysis," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 73(1), pages 79-92, March.
    15. Guy Debelle & Mr. Miguel A Savastano & Mr. Paul R Masson & Mr. Sunil Sharma, 1998. "Inflation Targeting as a Framework for Monetary Policy," IMF Economic Issues 1998/005, International Monetary Fund.
    16. 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.
    17. D Hodge, 2002. "Inflation Versus Unemployment in South Africa: Is There a Trade‐Off?," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 70(3), pages 193-204, March.
    18. Jeremy Rudd & Karl Whelan, 2007. "Modeling Inflation Dynamics: A Critical Review of Recent Research," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 39(s1), pages 155-170, February.
    19. Filippo Occhino, 2019. "The Flattening of the Phillips Curve: Policy Implications Depend on the Cause," Economic Commentary, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, issue July.
    20. Mavroeidis, Sophocles, 2005. "Identification Issues in Forward-Looking Models Estimated by GMM, with an Application to the Phillips Curve," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 37(3), pages 421-448, June.
    21. Robert J. Gordon, 2011. "The History of the Phillips Curve: Consensus and Bifurcation," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 78(309), pages 10-50, January.
    22. Mazumder, Sandeep, 2011. "The stability of the Phillips curve in India: Does the Lucas critique apply?," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(6), pages 528-539.
    23. Pami Dua & Upasna Gaur, 2010. "Determination of inflation in an open economy Phillips curve framework: the case of developed and developing Asian countries," Macroeconomics and Finance in Emerging Market Economies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 3(1), pages 33-51.
    24. Ben S. Bernanke & Frederic S. Mishkin, 1997. "Inflation Targeting: A New Framework for Monetary Policy?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 11(2), pages 97-116, Spring.
    25. Johannes Fedderke & Yang Liu, 2018. "Inflation in South Africa: An Assessment of Alternative Inflation Models," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 86(2), pages 197-230, June.
    26. Byron Botha & Shaun de Jager & Franz Ruch & Rudi Steinbach, 2017. "The Quarterly Projection Model of the SARB," Working Papers 8000, South African Reserve Bank.
    27. Guy Debelle & Miguel A Savastano & Paul R Masson & Sunil Sharma, 1998. "Inflation Targeting as a Framework for Monetary Policy," IMF Economic Issues 15, International Monetary Fund.
    28. Byron Botha & Lauren Kuhn & Daan Steenkamp, 2020. "Is the Phillips curve framework still useful for understanding inflation dynamics in South Africa," Working Papers 10211, South African Reserve Bank.
    29. Alain Kabundi & Eric Schaling & Modeste Some, 2019. "Estimating a Phillips Curve for South Africa: A Bounded Random-Walk Approach," International Journal of Central Banking, International Journal of Central Banking, vol. 15(2), pages 75-100, June.
    30. Sandeep Mazumder, 2012. "The Volcker--Greenspan--Bernanke Phillips Curve," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 19(4), pages 387-391, March.
    31. P. Burger & M. Marinkov, 2006. "The South African Phillips Curve: How Applicable Is The Gordon Model?," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 74(2), pages 172-189, June.
    32. Gali, Jordi & Gertler, Mark, 1999. "Inflation dynamics: A structural econometric analysis," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(2), pages 195-222, October.
    33. Direye, Eli & Khemraj, Tarron, 2021. "Central bank securities and FX market intervention in a developing economy," MPRA Paper 111533, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 09 Aug 2021.
    34. Jeffrey C. Fuhrer, 1995. "The Phillips curve is alive and well," New England Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, issue Mar, pages 41-56.
    35. Mr. Douglas Laxton & Mr. Andrew Berg & Mr. Philippe D Karam, 2006. "A Practical Model-Based Approach to Monetary Policy Analysis—Overview," IMF Working Papers 2006/080, International Monetary Fund.
    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. Malikane, Christopher, 2014. "Traditional Inflation Dynamics," MPRA Paper 61427, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Malikane, Christopher, 2014. "A new Keynesian triangle Phillips curve," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 247-255.
    3. Phiri, Andrew, 2015. "Examining asymmetric effects in the South African Philips curve: Evidence from logistic smooth transition regression (LSTR) models," MPRA Paper 64487, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Sophocles Mavroeidis & Mikkel Plagborg-Møller & James H. Stock, 2014. "Empirical Evidence on Inflation Expectations in the New Keynesian Phillips Curve," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 52(1), pages 124-188, March.
    5. Malikane, Christopher, 2012. "Inflation dynamics and the cost channel in emerging markets," MPRA Paper 42688, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Kushal Banik Chowdhury & Nityananda Sarkar, 2017. "Is the Hybrid New Keynesian Phillips Curve Stable? Evidence from Some Emerging Economies," Journal of Quantitative Economics, Springer;The Indian Econometric Society (TIES), vol. 15(3), pages 427-449, September.
    7. Abbas, Syed K. & Bhattacharya, Prasad Sankar & Sgro, Pasquale, 2016. "The new Keynesian Phillips curve: An update on recent empirical advances," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 378-403.
    8. Malikane, Christopher, 2012. "The Microfoundations of the Keynesian Wage-Price Spiral," MPRA Paper 42923, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 2012.
    9. Agénor, Pierre-Richard & Bayraktar, Nihal, 2010. "Contracting models of the Phillips curve empirical estimates for middle-income countries," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 32(2), pages 555-570, June.
    10. Temitope Leshoro & Umakrishnan Kollamparambil, 2016. "Inflation Or Output Targeting? Monetary Policy Appropriateness In South Africa," PSL Quarterly Review, Economia civile, vol. 69(276), pages 77-104.
    11. Toshihiro Okada, 2017. "Time to Innovate and Aggregate Fluctuations: a New Keynesian Model with Endogenous Technology," Discussion Paper Series 154, School of Economics, Kwansei Gakuin University, revised Dec 2018.
    12. Choi, Yoonseok, 2021. "Inflation dynamics, the role of inflation at different horizons and inflation uncertainty," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 71(C), pages 649-662.
    13. Aristidou, Chrystalleni, 2018. "The meta-Phillips Curve: Modelling U.S. inflation in the presence of regime change," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 367-379.
    14. Bhavesh Salunkhe & Anuradha Patnaik, 2019. "Inflation Dynamics and Monetary Policy in India: A New Keynesian Phillips Curve Perspective," South Asian Journal of Macroeconomics and Public Finance, , vol. 8(2), pages 144-179, December.
    15. Joseph P. Byrne & Alexandros Kontonikas & Alberto Montagnoli, 2013. "International Evidence on the New Keynesian Phillips Curve Using Aggregate and Disaggregate Data," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 45(5), pages 913-932, August.
    16. Carlos Medel, 2017. "Forecasting Chilean inflation with the hybrid new keynesian Phillips curve: globalisation, combination, and accuracy," Journal Economía Chilena (The Chilean Economy), Central Bank of Chile, vol. 20(3), pages 004-050, December.
    17. Bratsiotis, George J. & Robinson, Wayne A., 2016. "Unit Total Costs: An Alternative Marginal Cost Proxy for Inflation Dynamics," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 20(7), pages 1826-1849.
    18. Szafranek, Karol, 2017. "Flattening of the New Keynesian Phillips curve: Evidence for an emerging, small open economy," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 334-348.
    19. Boug, Pål & Cappelen, Adne & Swensen, Anders Rygh, 2010. "The new Keynesian Phillips curve revisited," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 34(5), pages 858-874, May.
    20. Johannes Fedderke & Yang Liu, 2018. "Inflation in South Africa: An Assessment of Alternative Inflation Models," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 86(2), pages 197-230, June.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Inflation; Phillips curves; Backward-looking behaviour;
    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

    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:eee:ecanpo:v:73:y:2022:i:c:p:262-271. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/economic-analysis-and-policy .

    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.