IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ijc/ijcjou/y2025q3a3.html

What Drives Inflation? Disentangling Demand and Supply Factors

Author

Listed:
  • Sandra Eickmeier

    (Deutsche Bundesbank, CAMA and CEPR)

  • Boris Hofmann

    (Bank for International Settlements)

Abstract

We estimate indicators of aggregate demand and supply conditions based on a factor model for U.S. inflation and real activity. We identify demand and supply factors by imposing theoretically motivated sign restrictions on factor loadings. The results provide a narrative of stance of demand and supply in the United States over the past five decades. The most recent factor estimates indicate that the inflation surge in 2021/22 was driven by a combination of extraordinarily expansionary demand conditions and tight supply conditions. We obtain similar results for the euro area, but with a somewhat greater role for tight supply consistent with the greater exposure of the region to recent adverse global energy price shocks. We further find that tighter monetary policy and tighter financial conditions dampen both demand and supply.

Suggested Citation

  • Sandra Eickmeier & Boris Hofmann, 2025. "What Drives Inflation? Disentangling Demand and Supply Factors," International Journal of Central Banking, International Journal of Central Banking, vol. 21(3), pages 111-154, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:ijc:ijcjou:y:2025:q:3:a:3
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.ijcb.org/journal/ijcb25q3a3.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Stock, James H. & Watson, Mark W., 2014. "Estimating turning points using large data sets," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 178(P2), pages 368-381.
    2. Chowdhury, Ibrahim & Hoffmann, Mathias & Schabert, Andreas, 2006. "Inflation dynamics and the cost channel of monetary transmission," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 50(4), pages 995-1016, May.
    3. Mark Gertler & Jordi Gali & Richard Clarida, 1999. "The Science of Monetary Policy: A New Keynesian Perspective," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 37(4), pages 1661-1707, December.
    4. James H. Stock & Mark W. Watson, 2005. "Implications of Dynamic Factor Models for VAR Analysis," NBER Working Papers 11467, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Lawrence J. Christiano & Martin Eichenbaum & Charles L. Evans, 2005. "Nominal Rigidities and the Dynamic Effects of a Shock to Monetary Policy," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 113(1), pages 1-45, February.
    6. Jushan Bai & Serena Ng, 2002. "Determining the Number of Factors in Approximate Factor Models," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 70(1), pages 191-221, January.
    7. Christina D. Romer & David H. Romer, 2004. "A New Measure of Monetary Shocks: Derivation and Implications," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(4), pages 1055-1084, September.
    8. Refet S Gürkaynak & Brian Sack & Eric Swanson, 2005. "Do Actions Speak Louder Than Words? The Response of Asset Prices to Monetary Policy Actions and Statements," International Journal of Central Banking, International Journal of Central Banking, vol. 1(1), May.
    9. Juan F. Rubio-Ramírez & Daniel F. Waggoner & Tao Zha, 2010. "Structural Vector Autoregressions: Theory of Identification and Algorithms for Inference," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 77(2), pages 665-696.
    10. Chamberlain, Gary & Rothschild, Michael, 1983. "Arbitrage, Factor Structure, and Mean-Variance Analysis on Large Asset Markets," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 51(5), pages 1281-1304, September.
    11. Swanson, Eric T., 2021. "Measuring the effects of federal reserve forward guidance and asset purchases on financial markets," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 32-53.
    12. Stock, James H & Watson, Mark W, 2002. "Macroeconomic Forecasting Using Diffusion Indexes," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 20(2), pages 147-162, April.
    13. David R. Baqaee & Emmanuel Farhi & Kunal Sangani, 2024. "The Supply-Side Effects of Monetary Policy," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 132(4), pages 1065-1112.
    14. James H. James & Mark W. Watson, 2005. "Implications of Dynamic Factor Models for VAR Analysis," Working Papers 2005-2, Princeton University. Economics Department..
    15. Lawrence H Summers, 2014. "U.S. Economic Prospects: Secular Stagnation, Hysteresis, and the Zero Lower Bound," Business Economics, Palgrave Macmillan;National Association for Business Economics, vol. 49(2), pages 65-73, April.
    16. Gert Peersman, 2005. "What caused the early millennium slowdown? Evidence based on vector autoregressions," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 20(2), pages 185-207.
    17. M. Ayhan Kose & Christopher Otrok & Charles H. Whiteman, 2003. "International Business Cycles: World, Region, and Country-Specific Factors," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(4), pages 1216-1239, September.
    18. Gonçalves, Eduardo & Koester, Gerrit, 2022. "The role of demand and supply in underlying inflation – decomposing HICPX inflation into components," Economic Bulletin Boxes, European Central Bank, vol. 7.
    19. 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.
    20. Simon Gilchrist & Egon Zakrajsek, 2012. "Credit Spreads and Business Cycle Fluctuations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(4), pages 1692-1720, June.
    21. Jushan Bai & Pierre Perron, 1998. "Estimating and Testing Linear Models with Multiple Structural Changes," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 66(1), pages 47-78, January.
    22. Bai, Jushan & Ng, Serena, 2006. "Evaluating latent and observed factors in macroeconomics and finance," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 131(1-2), pages 507-537.
    23. Eickmeier, Sandra & Gambacorta, Leonardo & Hofmann, Boris, 2014. "Understanding global liquidity," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 1-18.
    24. Andrade, Philippe & Ferroni, Filippo, 2021. "Delphic and odyssean monetary policy shocks: Evidence from the euro area," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 816-832.
    25. Stock J.H. & Watson M.W., 2002. "Forecasting Using Principal Components From a Large Number of Predictors," Journal of the American Statistical Association, American Statistical Association, vol. 97, pages 1167-1179, December.
    26. Ben S. Bernanke & Jean Boivin & Piotr Eliasz, 2005. "Measuring the Effects of Monetary Policy: A Factor-Augmented Vector Autoregressive (FAVAR) Approach," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 120(1), pages 387-422.
    27. Frank Smets & Raf Wouters, 2003. "An Estimated Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium Model of the Euro Area," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 1(5), pages 1123-1175, September.
    28. Johannes F. Wieland & Mu‐Jeung Yang, 2020. "Financial Dampening," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 52(1), pages 79-113, February.
    29. 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.
    30. Adam Hale Shapiro, 2022. "How Much Do Supply and Demand Drive Inflation?," FRBSF Economic Letter, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, vol. 2022(15), pages 1-06, June.
    31. Caballero, Ricardo J & Hammour, Mohamad L, 1994. "The Cleansing Effect of Recessions," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(5), pages 1350-1368, December.
    32. Renee Fry & Adrian Pagan, 2007. "Some Issues in Using Sign Restrictions for Identifying Structural VARs," NCER Working Paper Series 14, National Centre for Econometric Research.
    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. Stock, J.H. & Watson, M.W., 2016. "Dynamic Factor Models, Factor-Augmented Vector Autoregressions, and Structural Vector Autoregressions in Macroeconomics," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & Harald Uhlig (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 415-525, Elsevier.
    2. Sandra Eickmeier, 2009. "Comovements and heterogeneity in the euro area analyzed in a non-stationary dynamic factor model," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 24(6), pages 933-959.
    3. Eickmeier, Sandra & Kühnlenz, Markus, 2018. "China'S Role In Global Inflation Dynamics," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 22(2), pages 225-254, March.
    4. Claudia M. Buch & Sandra Eickmeier & Esteban Prieto, 2014. "Macroeconomic Factors and Microlevel Bank Behavior," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 46(4), pages 715-751, June.
    5. Helmut Lütkepohl, 2014. "Structural Vector Autoregressive Analysis in a Data Rich Environment: A Survey," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 1351, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    6. Eickmeier, Sandra & Gambacorta, Leonardo & Hofmann, Boris, 2014. "Understanding global liquidity," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 1-18.
    7. Eickmeier, Sandra & Hofmann, Boris, 2013. "Monetary Policy, Housing Booms, And Financial (Im)Balances," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 17(4), pages 830-860, June.
    8. Ramey, V.A., 2016. "Macroeconomic Shocks and Their Propagation," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & Harald Uhlig (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 71-162, Elsevier.
    9. Karim Barhoumi & Olivier Darné & Laurent Ferrara, 2014. "Dynamic factor models: A review of the literature," OECD Journal: Journal of Business Cycle Measurement and Analysis, OECD Publishing, Centre for International Research on Economic Tendency Surveys, vol. 2013(2), pages 73-107.
    10. Donato Masciandaro, 2026. "Monetary Policy and Taylor Reaction Functions: Business Cycles, Central Bank Governance and Central Bankers’ Preferences," BAFFI CAREFIN Working Papers 26270, BAFFI CAREFIN, Centre for Applied Research on International Markets Banking Finance and Regulation, Universita' Bocconi, Milano, Italy.
    11. Eickmeier, Sandra, 2009. "Analyse der Übertragung US-amerikanischer Schocks auf Deutschland auf Basis eines FAVAR," Discussion Paper Series 1: Economic Studies 2009,35, Deutsche Bundesbank.
    12. Abbate, Angela & Eickmeier, Sandra & Prieto, Esteban, 2023. "Financial shocks and inflation dynamics," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 27(2), pages 350-378, March.
    13. Mr. Maxym Kryshko, 2011. "Data-Rich DSGE and Dynamic Factor Models," IMF Working Papers 2011/216, International Monetary Fund.
    14. Eickmeier Sandra, 2010. "Analyse der Übertragung US-amerikanischer Schocks auf Deutschland auf Basis eines FAVAR / A FAVAR-based Analysis of the Transmission of US Shocks to Germany," Journal of Economics and Statistics (Jahrbuecher fuer Nationaloekonomie und Statistik), De Gruyter, vol. 230(5), pages 571-600, October.
    15. L. Salzmann, 2018. "China’s Economic Slowdown and International Inflation Dynamics," Working Papers 2018.03, International Network for Economic Research - INFER.
    16. Salzmann, Leonard, 2020. "China's Economic Slowdown and International Inflation Dynamics," EconStor Preprints 176757, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, revised 2020.
    17. Thomas Despois & Catherine Doz, 2023. "Identifying and interpreting the factors in factor models via sparsity: Different approaches," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 38(4), pages 533-555, June.
    18. Andrea Carriero & Francesco Corsello & Massimiliano Marcellino, 2022. "The global component of inflation volatility," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 37(4), pages 700-721, June.
    19. Max Breitenlechner & Martin Geiger & Mathias Klein, 2024. "The Fiscal Channel of Monetary Policy," Working Papers 2024-07, Faculty of Economics and Statistics, Universität Innsbruck.
    20. Tatjana Dahlhaus & Luca Gambetti, 2025. "Noisy monetary policy announcements," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 40(2), pages 164-180, March.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • E3 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles
    • E5 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit
    • E6 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook
    • C3 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Multiple or Simultaneous Equation Models; Multiple Variables

    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:ijc:ijcjou:y:2025:q:3:a:3. 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: Bank for International Settlements (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.ijcb.org/ .

    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.