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A Century of Inflation Forecasts

Author

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  • Antonello D'Agostino

    (European Central Bank)

  • Paolo Surico

    (London Business School and CEPR)

Abstract

We investigate inflation predictability in the United States across the monetary regimes of the twentieth century. The forecasts based on money growth and output growth were significantly more accurate than the forecasts based on past inflation only during the regimes associated with neither a clear nominal anchor nor a credible commitment to fight inflation. These include the years from the outbreak of World War II in 1939 to the implementation of the Bretton Woods Agreements in 1951 and from Nixon's closure of the gold window in 1971 to the end of Volcker's disinflation in 1983. © 2012 The President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Suggested Citation

  • Antonello D'Agostino & Paolo Surico, 2012. "A Century of Inflation Forecasts," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 94(4), pages 1097-1106, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:tpr:restat:v:94:y:2012:i:4:p:1097-1106
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    Cited by:

    1. Rossi, Barbara, 2013. "Advances in Forecasting under Instability," Handbook of Economic Forecasting, in: G. Elliott & C. Granger & A. Timmermann (ed.), Handbook of Economic Forecasting, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 1203-1324, Elsevier.
    2. Colin Bermingham & Antonello D’Agostino, 2014. "Understanding and forecasting aggregate and disaggregate price dynamics," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 46(2), pages 765-788, March.
    3. Amir Ahmadi, Pooyan & Matthes, Christian & Wang, Mu-Chun, 2014. "Drifts, Volatilities and Impulse Responses Over the Last Century," VfS Annual Conference 2014 (Hamburg): Evidence-based Economic Policy 100562, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    4. Pooyan Amir-Ahmadi & Christian Matthes & Mu-Chun Wang, 2020. "Choosing Prior Hyperparameters: With Applications to Time-Varying Parameter Models," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 38(1), pages 124-136, January.
    5. Zolotoy, Leon & Frederickson, James R. & Lyon, John D., 2017. "Aggregate earnings and stock market returns: The good, the bad, and the state-dependent," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 157-175.
    6. Ardakani Omid M. & Kishor N. Kundan, 2018. "Examining the success of the central banks in inflation targeting countries: the dynamics of the inflation gap and institutional characteristics," Studies in Nonlinear Dynamics & Econometrics, De Gruyter, vol. 22(1), pages 1-19, February.
    7. Martin Gachter & Elias Hasler & Florian Huber, 2023. "A tale of two tails: 130 years of growth-at-risk," Papers 2302.08920, arXiv.org.
    8. Hännikäinen, Jari, 2017. "When does the yield curve contain predictive power? Evidence from a data-rich environment," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 33(4), pages 1044-1064.
    9. Kabukçuoğlu, Ayşe & Martínez-García, Enrique, 2018. "Inflation as a global phenomenon—Some implications for inflation modeling and forecasting," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 46-73.
    10. Carriero, Andrea & Galvão, Ana Beatriz & Kapetanios, George, 2019. "A comprehensive evaluation of macroeconomic forecasting methods," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 35(4), pages 1226-1239.
    11. Markku Lanne & Jani Luoto & Henri Nyberg, 2014. "Is the Quantity Theory of Money Useful in Forecasting U.S. Inflation?," CREATES Research Papers 2014-26, Department of Economics and Business Economics, Aarhus University.
    12. 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).
    13. Castelnuovo, Efrem, 2016. "Modest macroeconomic effects of monetary policy shocks during the great moderation: An alternative interpretation," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 47(PB), pages 300-314.
    14. Georgios Karras, 2015. "Low Inflation vs. Stable Inflation: Evidence from the UK, 1688–2009," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 62(5), pages 505-517, November.
    15. Ardakani Omid M. & Kishor N. Kundan, 2018. "Examining the success of the central banks in inflation targeting countries: the dynamics of the inflation gap and institutional characteristics," Studies in Nonlinear Dynamics & Econometrics, De Gruyter, vol. 22(1), pages 1-19, February.
    16. Carlo A. Favero & Arie E. Gozluklu & Haoxi Yang, 2016. "Demographics and the Behavior of Interest Rates," IMF Economic Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Monetary Fund, vol. 64(4), pages 732-776, November.
    17. Cross, Jamie & Poon, Aubrey, 2016. "Forecasting structural change and fat-tailed events in Australian macroeconomic variables," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 34-51.
    18. Daniel Kaufmann, 2019. "Nominal stability over two centuries," Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics, Springer;Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics, vol. 155(1), pages 1-23, December.
    19. Pooyan Amir-Ahmadi & Christian Matthes & Mu-Chun Wang, 2016. "Choosing Prior Hyperparameters," Working Paper 16-9, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond.
    20. Gächter, Martin & Hasler, Elias & Scharler, Johann, 2023. "Kicking the can down the road: A historical growth-at-risk perspective," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 228(C).
    21. Harun Özkan & M. Yazgan, 2015. "Is forecasting inflation easier under inflation targeting?," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 48(2), pages 609-626, March.
    22. Fanelli, Luca & Sorge, Marco M., 2017. "Indeterminate forecast accuracy under indeterminacy," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 57-70.
    23. Gozluklu, Arie & Morin, Annaïg, 2019. "Stock vs. Bond yields and demographic fluctuations," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 109(C).

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    inflation; predictability; monetary regimes; Phillips curve; time-varying models;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E37 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Forecasting and Simulation: Models and Applications
    • E42 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Monetary Sytsems; Standards; Regimes; Government and the Monetary System
    • E47 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Forecasting and Simulation: Models and Applications

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    1. A Century of Inflation Forecasts (REStat 2012) in ReplicationWiki

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