IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/arx/papers/2601.11601.html

Latent Variable Phillips Curve

Author

Listed:
  • Daniil Bargman
  • Francesca Medda
  • Akash Sedai Sharma

Abstract

This paper re-examines the empirical Phillips curve (PC) model and its usefulness in the context of medium-term inflation forecasting. A latent variable Phillips curve hypothesis is formulated and tested using 3,968 randomly generated factor combinations. Evidence from US core PCE inflation between Q1 1983 and Q1 2025 suggests that latent variable PC models reliably outperform traditional PC models six to eight quarters ahead and stand a greater chance of outperforming a univariate benchmark. Incorporating an MA(1) residual process improves the accuracy of empirical PC models across the board, although the gains relative to univariate models remain small. The findings presented in this paper have two important implications: First, they corroborate a new conceptual view on the Phillips curve theory; second, they offer a novel path towards improving the competitiveness of Phillips curve forecasts in future empirical work.

Suggested Citation

  • Daniil Bargman & Francesca Medda & Akash Sedai Sharma, 2026. "Latent Variable Phillips Curve," Papers 2601.11601, arXiv.org.
    • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2601.11601
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://arxiv.org/pdf/2601.11601
    File Function: Latest version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. 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.
    2. Roberto Casarin & Antonio Peruzzi & Davide Raggi, 2025. "Multiple Equilibria and the Phillips Curve: Do Agents Always Underreact?," Working Papers 2025: 10, Department of Economics, University of Venice "Ca' Foscari".
    3. Stock, James H. & Watson, Mark W., 1999. "Forecasting inflation," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(2), pages 293-335, October.
    4. Gill Hammond, 2012. "State of the art of inflation targeting," Handbooks, Centre for Central Banking Studies, Bank of England, edition 4, number 29, April.
    5. Cars Hommes & Kostas Mavromatis & Tolga Özden & Mei Zhu, 2023. "Behavioral learning equilibria in New Keynesian models," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 14(4), pages 1401-1445, November.
    6. Laurence Ball & N. Gregory Mankiw & David Romer, 1988. "The New Keynsesian Economics and the Output-Inflation Trade-off," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 19(1), pages 1-82.
    7. Laurence Ball, 2000. "Near-Rationality and Inflation in Two Monetary Regimes," NBER Working Papers 7988, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. 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.
    9. Gordon, Robert J, 1977. "The Theory of Domestic Inflation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 67(1), pages 128-134, February.
    10. Kevin J. Lansing, 2019. "Improving the Phillips Curve with an Interaction Variable," FRBSF Economic Letter, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
    11. Berriel, Tiago & Medeiros, Marcelo C. & Sena, Marcelo J., 2016. "Instrument selection for estimation of a forward-looking Phillips Curve," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 145(C), pages 123-125.
    12. Chen, Yu-chin & Turnovsky, Stephen J. & Zivot, Eric, 2014. "Forecasting inflation using commodity price aggregates," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 183(1), pages 117-134.
    13. Mutascu, Mihai, 2019. "Phillips curve in US: New insights in time and frequency," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(1), pages 85-96.
    14. Christopher A. Sims, 2006. "Rational Inattention: Beyond the Linear-Quadratic Case," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(2), pages 158-163, May.
    15. Michael F. Bryan & Brent Meyer, 2010. "Are some prices in the CPI more forward looking than others? We think so," Economic Commentary, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, vol. 2010(02), pages 1-6, May.
    16. Eric Eisenstat & Rodney W. Strachan, 2016. "Modelling Inflation Volatility," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 31(5), pages 805-820, August.
    17. Andreas Hornstein, 2024. "Residual Seasonality in Monthly Core Inflation," Richmond Fed Economic Brief, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, vol. 24(13), May.
    18. Hommes, Cars & Sorger, Gerhard, 1998. "Consistent Expectations Equilibria," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 2(3), pages 287-321, September.
    19. Anna Cororaton & Richard Peach & Robert W. Rich, 2011. "How does slack influence inflation?," Current Issues in Economics and Finance, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, vol. 17(June).
    20. Laurence Ball, 2000. "Near-rationality and inflation in two monetary regimes," Proceedings, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
    21. Jing Cynthia Wu & Fan Dora Xia, 2016. "Measuring the Macroeconomic Impact of Monetary Policy at the Zero Lower Bound," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 48(2-3), pages 253-291, March.
    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. Faust, Jon & Wright, Jonathan H., 2013. "Forecasting Inflation," Handbook of Economic Forecasting, in: G. Elliott & C. Granger & A. Timmermann (ed.), Handbook of Economic Forecasting, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 2-56, Elsevier.
    2. Chletsos, Michael & Drosou, Vasiliki & Roupakias, Stelios, 2016. "Can Phillips curve explain the recent behavior of inflation? Further evidence from USA and Canada," The Journal of Economic Asymmetries, Elsevier, vol. 14(PA), pages 20-28.
    3. Thórarinn G. Pétursson, 2018. "Disinflation and improved anchoring of long-term inflation expectations - The Icelandic experience," Economics wp77, Department of Economics, Central bank of Iceland.
    4. Alexander Mayer & Davide Raggi, 2025. "Estimation and inference in models with multiple behavioural equilibria," Papers 2512.04541, arXiv.org, revised Mar 2026.
    5. Saglio, Sophie & López-Villavicencio, Antonia, 2012. "Introducing price-setting behaviour in the Phillips Curve: the role of nonlinearities," MPRA Paper 46646, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Laurence Ball & N. Gregory Mankiw, 2002. "The NAIRU in Theory and Practice," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 16(4), pages 115-136, Fall.
    7. Roberto Casarin & Antonio Peruzzi & Davide Raggi, 2025. "Multiple Equilibria and the Phillips Curve: Do Agents Always Underreact?," Working Papers 2025: 10, Department of Economics, University of Venice "Ca' Foscari".
    8. Duncan, Roberto & Martínez-García, Enrique, 2019. "New perspectives on forecasting inflation in emerging market economies: An empirical assessment," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 35(3), pages 1008-1031.
    9. Tamim Bayoumi & Giovanni Dell'Ariccia & Karl F Habermeier & Tommaso Mancini Griffoli & Fabian Valencia, 2014. "Monetary Policy in the New Normal," IMF Staff Discussion Notes 14/3, International Monetary Fund.
    10. Fröhling, Annette & Lommatzsch, Kirsten, 2011. "Output sensitivity of inflation in the euro area: Indirect evidence from disaggregated consumer prices," Discussion Paper Series 1: Economic Studies 2011,25, Deutsche Bundesbank.
    11. Renaud St-Cyr, 2018. "Non-linéarité de la courbe de Phillips : un survol de la littérature," Staff Analytical Notes 2018-3, Bank of Canada.
    12. David Demery & Nigel Duck, 2003. "Inflation Dynamics and Inflation Regimes," Bristol Economics Discussion Papers 03/549, School of Economics, University of Bristol, UK.
    13. Augustus J. Panton, 2020. "Climate Hysteresis and Monetary Policy," CAMA Working Papers 2020-76, Centre for Applied Macroeconomic Analysis, Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University.
    14. 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.
    15. Marco Gross & Willi Semmler, 2019. "Mind the Output Gap: The Disconnect of Growth and Inflation during Recessions and Convex Phillips Curves in the Euro Area," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 81(4), pages 817-848, August.
    16. Athanasios Orphanides & John Williams, 2004. "Imperfect Knowledge, Inflation Expectations, and Monetary Policy," NBER Chapters, in: The Inflation-Targeting Debate, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Kevin Lansing, 2009. "Time Varying U.S. Inflation Dynamics and the New Keynesian Phillips Curve," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 12(2), pages 304-326, April.
    18. Gabriel, Ricardo Duque, 2023. "Monetary policy and the wage inflation-unemployment tradeoff," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 159(C).
    19. 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.
    20. Malikane, Christopher, 2014. "Traditional Inflation Dynamics," MPRA Paper 61427, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:arx:papers:2601.11601. 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: arXiv administrators (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://arxiv.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.