IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/japmet/v38y2023i5p751-766.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Understanding trend inflation through the lens of the goods and services sectors

Author

Listed:
  • Yunjong Eo
  • Luis Uzeda
  • Benjamin Wong

Abstract

We distinguish between the goods and services sectors in an unobserved components model of U.S. inflation. We find that prior to the early 1990s, both sectors contributed to volatility of aggregate trend inflation, while since then, this has been predominantly driven by the services sector, with the trend in goods inflation being essentially flat. We document that the large reduction in the volatility of the trend for goods inflation has been the most important driver of the decline in the volatility in aggregate trend inflation reported by Stock and Watson (2007). Our results appear robust to COVID‐19 inflation developments.

Suggested Citation

  • Yunjong Eo & Luis Uzeda & Benjamin Wong, 2023. "Understanding trend inflation through the lens of the goods and services sectors," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 38(5), pages 751-766, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:japmet:v:38:y:2023:i:5:p:751-766
    DOI: 10.1002/jae.2975
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/jae.2975
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/jae.2975?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
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Joshua C. C. Chan & Gary Koop & Simon M. Potter, 2016. "A Bounded Model of Time Variation in Trend Inflation, Nairu and the Phillips Curve," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 31(3), pages 551-565, April.
    2. Peter N. Ireland, 2007. "Changes in the Federal Reserve's Inflation Target: Causes and Consequences," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 39(8), pages 1851-1882, December.
    3. James H. Stock & Mark W. Watson, 2016. "Core Inflation and Trend Inflation," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 98(4), pages 770-784, October.
    4. McCausland, William J. & Miller, Shirley & Pelletier, Denis, 2011. "Simulation smoothing for state-space models: A computational efficiency analysis," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 55(1), pages 199-212, January.
    5. Kamber, Güneş & Wong, Benjamin, 2020. "Global factors and trend inflation," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 122(C).
    6. Olivier Coibion & Yuriy Gorodnichenko, 2011. "Monetary Policy, Trend Inflation, and the Great Moderation: An Alternative Interpretation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(1), pages 341-370, February.
    7. Klaus Adam & Henning Weber, 2019. "Optimal Trend Inflation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(2), pages 702-737, February.
    8. Sangjoon Kim & Neil Shephard & Siddhartha Chib, 1998. "Stochastic Volatility: Likelihood Inference and Comparison with ARCH Models," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 65(3), pages 361-393.
    9. Hendry, David F. & Hubrich, Kirstin, 2011. "Combining Disaggregate Forecasts or Combining Disaggregate Information to Forecast an Aggregate," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 29(2), pages 216-227.
    10. Ricardo Reis & Mark W. Watson, 2010. "Relative Goods' Prices, Pure Inflation, and the Phillips Correlation," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 2(3), pages 128-157, July.
    11. Joshua C. C. Chan & Gary Koop & Simon M. Potter, 2013. "A New Model of Trend Inflation," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 31(1), pages 94-106, January.
    12. Francesco Bianchi & Andrea Civelli, 2015. "Globalization and Inflation: Evidence from a Time Varying VAR," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 18(2), pages 406-433, April.
    13. Beveridge, Stephen & Nelson, Charles R., 1981. "A new approach to decomposition of economic time series into permanent and transitory components with particular attention to measurement of the `business cycle'," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 7(2), pages 151-174.
    14. Guido Ascari & Argia M. Sbordone, 2014. "The Macroeconomics of Trend Inflation," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 52(3), pages 679-739, September.
    15. 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.
    16. Tallman, Ellis W. & Zaman, Saeed, 2017. "Forecasting inflation: Phillips curve effects on services price measures," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 33(2), pages 442-457.
    17. Koopman, Siem Jan & Shephard, Neil (ed.), 2015. "Unobserved Components and Time Series Econometrics," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199683666, Decembrie.
    18. Matteo Luciani, 2020. "Common and Idiosyncratic Inflation," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2020-024, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    19. Baldwin, Richard, 2022. "Globotics and macroeconomics: Globalisation and automation of the service sector," CEPR Discussion Papers 17530, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    20. Karl Whelan, 2000. "A guide to the use of chain aggregated NIPA data," Open Access publications 10197/253, School of Economics, University College Dublin.
    21. 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.
    22. Eo Yunjong, 2016. "Structural changes in inflation dynamics: multiple breaks at different dates for different parameters," Studies in Nonlinear Dynamics & Econometrics, De Gruyter, vol. 20(3), pages 211-231, June.
    23. Kozicki, Sharon & Tinsley, P. A., 2001. "Shifting endpoints in the term structure of interest rates," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(3), pages 613-652, June.
    24. 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.
    25. Timothy Cogley & Giorgio E. Primiceri & Thomas J. Sargent, 2010. "Inflation-Gap Persistence in the US," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 2(1), pages 43-69, January.
    26. Karl Whelan, 2002. "A Guide To U.S. Chain Aggregated Nipa Data," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 48(2), pages 217-233, June.
    27. Omori, Yasuhiro & Chib, Siddhartha & Shephard, Neil & Nakajima, Jouchi, 2007. "Stochastic volatility with leverage: Fast and efficient likelihood inference," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 140(2), pages 425-449, October.
    28. Shih‐Tang Hwu & Chang‐Jin Kim, 2019. "Estimating Trend Inflation Based on Unobserved Components Model: Is It Correlated with the Inflation Gap?," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 51(8), pages 2305-2319, December.
    29. M. Henry Linder & Richard Peach & Robert W. Rich, 2013. "The parts are more than the whole: separating goods and services to predict core inflation," Current Issues in Economics and Finance, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, vol. 19(Aug).
    30. Steven B. Kamin & Mario Marazzi & John W. Schindler, 2006. "The Impact of Chinese Exports on Global Import Prices," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 14(2), pages 179-201, May.
    31. 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.
    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. Hie Joo Ahn & Matteo Luciani, 2021. "Relative prices and pure inflation since the mid-1990s," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2021-069, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    2. Guido Ascari & Luca Fosso, 2021. "The Inflation Rate Disconnect Puzzle: On the International Component of Trend Inflation and the Flattening of the Phillips Curve," Discussion Papers 2113, Centre for Macroeconomics (CFM).
    3. Jongrim Ha & M. Ayhan Kose & Franziska Ohnsorge, 2022. "Global Stagflation," Koç University-TUSIAD Economic Research Forum Working Papers 2204, Koc University-TUSIAD Economic Research Forum.
    4. Oleksiy Kryvtsov & James (Jim) C. MacGee & Luis Uzeda, 2023. "The 2021–22 Surge in Inflation," Discussion Papers 2023-3, Bank of Canada.
    5. Juan Angel Garcia & Aubrey Poon, 2022. "Inflation trends in Asia: implications for central banks [Are Phillips curves useful for forecasting inflation?]," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 74(3), pages 671-700.
    6. Claudio Borio & Piti Disyatat & Dora Xia & Egon Zakrajšek, 2021. "Monetary policy, relative prices and inflation control: flexibility born out of success," BIS Quarterly Review, Bank for International Settlements, September.

    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. Saeed Zaman, 2021. "A Unified Framework to Estimate Macroeconomic Stars," Working Papers 21-23R, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, revised 15 Aug 2022.
    2. James M. Nason & Gregor W. Smith, 2021. "Measuring the slowly evolving trend in US inflation with professional forecasts," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 36(1), pages 1-17, January.
    3. Bowen Fu, Ivan Mendieta-Muñoz, 2023. "Structural shocks and trend inflation," Working Paper Series, Department of Economics, University of Utah 2023_04, University of Utah, Department of Economics.
    4. Kamber, Güneş & Wong, Benjamin, 2020. "Global factors and trend inflation," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 122(C).
    5. Tallman, Ellis W. & Zaman, Saeed, 2017. "Forecasting inflation: Phillips curve effects on services price measures," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 33(2), pages 442-457.
    6. Guido Ascari & Paolo Bonomolo & Qazi Haque, 2023. "The Long-Run Phillips Curve is ... a Curve," Working Papers 789, DNB.
    7. Benjamin K. Johannsen & Elmar Mertens, 2021. "A Time‐Series Model of Interest Rates with the Effective Lower Bound," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 53(5), pages 1005-1046, August.
    8. Elmar Mertens & James M. Nason, 2020. "Inflation and professional forecast dynamics: An evaluation of stickiness, persistence, and volatility," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 11(4), pages 1485-1520, November.
    9. Behera, Harendra Kumar & Patra, Michael Debabrata, 2022. "Measuring trend inflation in India," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    10. Alex, Dony, 2021. "Anchoring of inflation expectations in large emerging economies," The Journal of Economic Asymmetries, Elsevier, vol. 23(C).
    11. Joshua C.C. Chan & Rodney W. Strachan, 2023. "Bayesian State Space Models In Macroeconometrics," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 37(1), pages 58-75, February.
    12. Garcia-Hiernaux, Alfredo & Gonzalez-Perez, Maria T. & Guerrero, David E., 2023. "Eurozone prices: A tale of convergence and divergence," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 126(C).
    13. Gael M. Martin & David T. Frazier & Ruben Loaiza-Maya & Florian Huber & Gary Koop & John Maheu & Didier Nibbering & Anastasios Panagiotelis, 2023. "Bayesian Forecasting in the 21st Century: A Modern Review," Monash Econometrics and Business Statistics Working Papers 1/23, Monash University, Department of Econometrics and Business Statistics.
    14. Chan, Joshua C.C., 2013. "Moving average stochastic volatility models with application to inflation forecast," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 176(2), pages 162-172.
    15. McNeil, James, 2023. "Monetary policy and the term structure of inflation expectations with information frictions," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 146(C).
    16. Luis Uzeda, 2022. "State Correlation and Forecasting: A Bayesian Approach Using Unobserved Components Models," Advances in Econometrics, in: Essays in Honour of Fabio Canova, volume 44, pages 25-53, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    17. Joshua C.C. Chan & Todd E. Clark & Gary Koop, 2018. "A New Model of Inflation, Trend Inflation, and Long‐Run Inflation Expectations," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 50(1), pages 5-53, February.
    18. Berger, Tino & Everaert, Gerdie & Vierke, Hauke, 2016. "Testing for time variation in an unobserved components model for the U.S. economy," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 179-208.
    19. Florian Huber & Daniel Kaufmann, 2020. "Trend Fundamentals and Exchange Rate Dynamics," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 87(348), pages 1016-1036, October.
    20. James McNeil & Gregor W. Smith, 2023. "The All‐Gap Phillips Curve," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 85(2), pages 269-282, April.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • C11 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods and Methodology: General - - - Bayesian Analysis: General
    • C32 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Multiple or Simultaneous Equation Models; Multiple Variables - - - Time-Series Models; Dynamic Quantile Regressions; Dynamic Treatment Effect Models; Diffusion Processes; State Space Models
    • 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:wly:japmet:v:38:y:2023:i:5:p:751-766. 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: http://www.interscience.wiley.com/jpages/0883-7252/ .

    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.