IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/bbk/bbkefp/1202.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Inflation Dynamics and Real Marginal Costs: New Evidence from U.S. Manufacturing Industries

Author

Listed:
  • Ivan Petrella

    (Department of Economics, Mathematics & Statistics, Birkbeck)

  • Emiliano Santoro

    (Catholic University of Milan
    University of Copenhagen)

Abstract

This paper deals with the analysis of price-setting in U.S. manufacturing industries. Recent studies have heavily criticized the ability of the New Keynesian Phillips curve (NKPC) to fit aggregate inflation [see, e.g., Rudd and Whelan, 2006, Can Rational Expectations Sticky-Price Models Explain Inflation Dynamics?, American Economic Review, vol. 96(1), pp. 303-320]. We challenge this evidence, showing that forward-looking behaviour as implied by the New Keynesian model of price-setting is widely supported at the sectoral level. In fact, current and expected future values of the income share of intermediate goods emerge as an effective driver of inflation dynamics. Unlike alternative proxies for the forcing variable, the cost of intermediate goods presents dynamic properties in line with the predictions of the New Keynesian theory.

Suggested Citation

  • Ivan Petrella & Emiliano Santoro, 2012. "Inflation Dynamics and Real Marginal Costs: New Evidence from U.S. Manufacturing Industries," Birkbeck Working Papers in Economics and Finance 1202, Birkbeck, Department of Economics, Mathematics & Statistics.
  • Handle: RePEc:bbk:bbkefp:1202
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/eprint/5957
    File Function: First version, 2012
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Emmanuel Dhyne & Luis J. Álvarez & Hervé Le Bihan & Giovanni Veronese & Daniel Dias & Johannes Hoffmann & Nicole Jonker & Patrick Lünnemann & Fabio Rumler & Jouko Vilmunen, 2005. "Price setting in the euro area: Some stylized facts from Individual Consumer Price Data," Working Paper Research 74, National Bank of Belgium.
    2. Lawless, Martina & Whelan, Karl T., 2011. "Understanding the dynamics of labor shares and inflation," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 33(2), pages 121-136, June.
    3. Emi Nakamura & Jón Steinsson, 2010. "Monetary Non-neutrality in a Multisector Menu Cost Model," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 125(3), pages 961-1013.
    4. 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.
    5. Holly, Sean & Pesaran, M. Hashem & Yamagata, Takashi, 2010. "A spatio-temporal model of house prices in the USA," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 158(1), pages 160-173, September.
    6. Jeff Fuhrer & George Moore, 1995. "Inflation Persistence," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 110(1), pages 127-159.
    7. Granger, C. W. J., 1980. "Long memory relationships and the aggregation of dynamic models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 14(2), pages 227-238, October.
    8. 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.
    9. Altissimo, Filippo & Mojon, Benoit & Zaffaroni, Paolo, 2009. "Can aggregation explain the persistence of inflation?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(2), pages 231-241, March.
    10. Pesaran, M. Hashem & Smith, Ron, 1995. "Estimating long-run relationships from dynamic heterogeneous panels," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 68(1), pages 79-113, July.
    11. Fuhrer, Jeffrey C., 2010. "Inflation Persistence," Handbook of Monetary Economics, in: Benjamin M. Friedman & Michael Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Monetary Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 9, pages 423-486, Elsevier.
    12. Jeremy Rudd & Karl Whelan, 2006. "Can Rational Expectations Sticky-Price Models Explain Inflation Dynamics?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(1), pages 303-320, March.
    13. Mark Bils & Peter J. Klenow, 2004. "Some Evidence on the Importance of Sticky Prices," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 112(5), pages 947-985, October.
    14. Jean Imbs & Eric Jondeau & Florian Pelgrin, 2006. "Aggregating Phillips curves," 2006 Meeting Papers 640, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    15. Hafedh Bouakez & Emanuela Cardia & Francisco J. Ruge-Murcia, 2009. "The Transmission Of Monetary Policy In A Multisector Economy," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 50(4), pages 1243-1266, November.
    16. James H. Stock & Motohiro Yogo, 2002. "Testing for Weak Instruments in Linear IV Regression," NBER Technical Working Papers 0284, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Gali, Jordi & Gertler, Mark & David Lopez-Salido, J., 2005. "Robustness of the estimates of the hybrid New Keynesian Phillips curve," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(6), pages 1107-1118, September.
    18. Harvey, A C & Jaeger, A, 1993. "Detrending, Stylized Facts and the Business Cycle," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 8(3), pages 231-247, July-Sept.
    19. Julio J. Rotemberg & Michael Woodford, 1991. "Markups and the Business Cycle," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1991, Volume 6, pages 63-140, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    20. Bouakez, Hafedh & Cardia, Emanuela & Ruge-Murcia, Francisco, 2014. "Sectoral price rigidity and aggregate dynamics," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 65(C), pages 1-22.
    21. Jeffrey C. Fuhrer, 2006. "Intrinsic and Inherited Inflation Persistence," International Journal of Central Banking, International Journal of Central Banking, vol. 2(3), September.
    22. Michael Woodford, 2001. "The Taylor Rule and Optimal Monetary Policy," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(2), pages 232-237, May.
    23. 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.
    24. J. B. Taylor & M. Woodford (ed.), 1999. "Handbook of Macroeconomics," Handbook of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 1, number 1.
    25. Rotemberg, Julio J & Woodford, Michael, 1996. "Imperfect Competition and the Effects of Energy Price Increases on Economic Activity," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 28(4), pages 550-577, November.
    26. Campbell Leith & Jim Malley, 2007. "A Sectoral Analysis of Price-Setting Behavior in U.S. Manufacturing Industries," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 89(2), pages 335-342, May.
    27. Imbs, Jean & Jondeau, Eric & Pelgrin, Florian, 2011. "Sectoral Phillips curves and the aggregate Phillips curve," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(4), pages 328-344.
    28. Basu, Susanto, 1995. "Intermediate Goods and Business Cycles: Implications for Productivity and Welfare," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(3), pages 512-531, June.
    29. Susanto Basu & Miles S. Kimball, 1997. "Cyclical Productivity with Unobserved Input Variation," NBER Working Papers 5915, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    30. Emi Nakamura & Jón Steinsson, 2008. "Five Facts about Prices: A Reevaluation of Menu Cost Models," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 123(4), pages 1415-1464.
    31. Calvo, Guillermo A., 1983. "Staggered prices in a utility-maximizing framework," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 12(3), pages 383-398, September.
    32. Sbordone, Argia M., 2002. "Prices and unit labor costs: a new test of price stickiness," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(2), pages 265-292, March.
    33. Rudd, Jeremy & Whelan, Karl, 2005. "Does Labor's Share Drive Inflation?," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 37(2), pages 297-312, April.
    34. Gali, Jordi & Gertler, Mark, 1999. "Inflation dynamics: A structural econometric analysis," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(2), pages 195-222, October.
    35. M. Hashem Pesaran, 2006. "Estimation and Inference in Large Heterogeneous Panels with a Multifactor Error Structure," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 74(4), pages 967-1012, July.
    36. Sbordone, Argia M., 2005. "Do expected future marginal costs drive inflation dynamics?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(6), pages 1183-1197, September.
    37. Eric J. Bartelsman & Wayne Gray, 1996. "The NBER Manufacturing Productivity Database," NBER Technical Working Papers 0205, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    38. Campbell, John Y & Shiller, Robert J, 1987. "Cointegration and Tests of Present Value Models," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 95(5), pages 1062-1088, October.
    39. Basu, Susanto & Fernald, John G, 1997. "Returns to Scale in U.S. Production: Estimates and Implications," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 105(2), pages 249-283, April.
    40. Petrella, Ivan & Santoro, Emiliano, 2011. "Input–output interactions and optimal monetary policy," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 35(11), pages 1817-1830.
    41. Bils, Mark, 1987. "The Cyclical Behavior of Marginal Cost and Price," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 77(5), pages 838-855, December.
    42. Christopher J. Nekarda & Valerie A. Ramey, 2020. "The Cyclical Behavior of the Price‐Cost Markup," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 52(S2), pages 319-353, December.
    43. Chow, Gregory C & Lin, An-loh, 1971. "Best Linear Unbiased Interpolation, Distribution, and Extrapolation of Time Series by Related Series," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 53(4), pages 372-375, November.
    44. Rotemberg, Julio J. & Woodford, Michael, 1999. "The cyclical behavior of prices and costs," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & M. Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 16, pages 1051-1135, Elsevier.
    45. Emmanuel Dhyne & Luis J. Álvarez & Hervé Le Bihan & Giovanni Veronese & Daniel Dias & Johannes Hoffmann & Nicole Jonker & Patrick Lünnemann & Fabio Rumler & Jouko Vilmunen, 2005. "Price setting in the euro area: Some stylized facts from Individual Consumer Price Data," Working Paper Research 74, National Bank of Belgium.
    46. Fernandez, Roque B, 1981. "A Methodological Note on the Estimation of Time Series," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 63(3), pages 471-476, August.
    47. Timothy Cogley & Argia M. Sbordone, 2008. "Trend Inflation, Indexation, and Inflation Persistence in the New Keynesian Phillips Curve," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(5), pages 2101-2126, December.
    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. Milda Norkute, 2015. "Can the sectoral New Keynesian Phillips curve explain inflation dynamics in the Euro Area?," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 49(4), pages 1191-1216, December.
    2. 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.
    3. Benjamin Born & Johannes Pfeifer, 2021. "Uncertainty‐driven business cycles: Assessing the markup channel," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 12(2), pages 587-623, May.
    4. Hülya Saygılı, 2020. "The nature of trade, global production fragmentation and inflationary dynamics: Cross‐country evidence," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 43(7), pages 2007-2031, July.
    5. Kalim Hyder & Stephen G. Hall, 2020. "Estimates of the New Keynesian Phillips Curve for Pakistan," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 59(2), pages 871-886, August.
    6. Cantelmo, Alessandro & Melina, Giovanni, 2018. "Monetary policy and the relative price of durable goods," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 1-48.
    7. Malikane, Christopher, 2014. "A new Keynesian triangle Phillips curve," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 247-255.
    8. Christopher Malikane & Tshepo Mokoka, 2014. "The new Keynesian Phillips curve: endogeneity and misspecification," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 46(25), pages 3082-3089, September.
    9. Medel, Carlos, 2015. "Inflation Dynamics and the Hybrid Neo Keynesian Phillips Curve: The Case of Chile," MPRA Paper 62609, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Mutiu Gbade Rasaki, 2017. "An Estimated New Keynesian Phillips Curve for Nigeria," Acta Universitatis Danubius. OEconomica, Danubius University of Galati, issue 13(2), pages 203-211, April.
    11. Hülya Saygılı, 2020. "Sectoral inflationary dynamics: cross-country evidence on the open-economy New Keynesian Phillips Curve," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 156(1), pages 75-101, February.
    12. 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.

    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. 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.
    2. Jean Imbs & Eric Jondeau & Florian Pelgrin, 2006. "Aggregating Phillips curves," 2006 Meeting Papers 640, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    3. 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.
    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. 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.
    6. Ichiro Muto, 2009. "Estimating A New Keynesian Phillips Curve With A Corrected Measure Of Real Marginal Cost: Evidence In Japan," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 47(4), pages 667-684, October.
    7. 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.
    8. Imbs, Jean & Jondeau, Eric & Pelgrin, Florian, 2011. "Sectoral Phillips curves and the aggregate Phillips curve," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(4), pages 328-344.
    9. Michael T. Kiley, 2007. "A Quantitative Comparison of Sticky-Price and Sticky-Information Models of Price Setting," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 39(s1), pages 101-125, February.
    10. Hülya Saygılı, 2020. "Sectoral inflationary dynamics: cross-country evidence on the open-economy New Keynesian Phillips Curve," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 156(1), pages 75-101, February.
    11. 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.
    12. Adam Hale Shapiro, 2008. "Estimating the New Keynesian Phillips Curve: A Vertical Production Chain Approach," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 40(4), pages 627-666, June.
    13. Argia M. Sbordone, 2006. "U.S. Wage and Price Dynamics: A Limited-Information Approach," International Journal of Central Banking, International Journal of Central Banking, vol. 2(3), September.
    14. Maarten Dossche & Freddy Heylen & Dirk Van den Poel, 2010. "The Kinked Demand Curve and Price Rigidity: Evidence from Scanner Data," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 112(4), pages 723-752, December.
    15. Thorvardur Tjörvi Ólafsson, 2006. "The New Keynesian Phillips Curve: In Search of Improvements and Adaptation to the Open Economy," Economics wp31_tjorvi, Department of Economics, Central bank of Iceland.
    16. 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.
    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. Malikane, Christopher, 2014. "A new Keynesian triangle Phillips curve," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 247-255.
    19. Borek Vašícek, 2011. "Inflation Dynamics and the New Keynesian Phillips Curve in Four Central European Countries," Emerging Markets Finance and Trade, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 47(5), pages 71-100, September.
    20. Kim, Insu, 2009. "Dual Wage Rigidities: Theory and Some Evidence," MPRA Paper 21494, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised Mar 2010.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    New Keynesian Phillips Curve; Aggregation; Sectoral Data; Intermediate Goods;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E31 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Price Level; Inflation; Deflation
    • L60 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Manufacturing - - - General

    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:bbk:bbkefp:1202. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.bbk.ac.uk/departments/ems/ .

    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.