IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ecb/ecbwps/20101176.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Evolving Phillips trade-off

Author

Listed:
  • Benati, Luca

Abstract

We characterise the evolution of the U.S. unemployment-inflation trade-off since the late XIX century era via a Bayesian time-varying parameters structural VAR. The Great Inflation episode appears as historically unique along several dimensions. In particular, the shape of the ‘Phillips loop’–which is defined in terms of the impulse-response functions of inflation and unemployment’s deviations from equilibrium–was, during those years, clearly out of line with respect to the rest of the sample period for all structural innovations except money demand shocks. During the Great Depression, on the other hand, the Phillips trade-off did not exhibit any peculiar qualitative feature, so that, when seen through these lenses, the 1930s only stand out because of the sheer size of the macroeconomic fluctuation. The historical evolution of the Phillips trade-off exhibits virtually no connection with the evolution of the extent of trade openness of the U.S. economy. Although, by itself, this does not rule out a possible impact of globalisation on the slope of the trade-off in recent years, it clearly suggests that, historically, the evolution of the trade-off has been dominated by factors other than trade openness. JEL Classification: E30, E32

Suggested Citation

  • Benati, Luca, 2010. "Evolving Phillips trade-off," Working Paper Series 1176, European Central Bank.
  • Handle: RePEc:ecb:ecbwps:20101176
    Note: 802546
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.ecb.europa.eu//pub/pdf/scpwps/ecbwp1176.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Nathan Balke & Robert J. Gordon, 1986. "Appendix B: Historical Data," NBER Chapters, in: The American Business Cycle: Continuity and Change, pages 781-850, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Uhlig, H.F.H.V.S. & Ravn, M., 1997. "On Adjusting the H-P Filter for the Frequency of Observations," Other publications TiSEM 1dd22a17-bed0-4e7c-a2c1-d, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    3. Barro, Robert J, 1979. "Money and the Price Level under the Gold Standard," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 89(353), pages 13-33, March.
    4. A. W. Phillips, 1958. "The Relation Between Unemployment and the Rate of Change of Money Wage Rates in the United Kingdom, 1861–1957," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 25(100), pages 283-299, November.
    5. Giorgio E. Primiceri, 2005. "Time Varying Structural Vector Autoregressions and Monetary Policy," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 72(3), pages 821-852.
    6. King, Robert G. & Watson, Mark W., 1994. "The post-war U.S. phillips curve: a revisionist econometric history," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 41(1), pages 157-219, December.
    7. Frederic S. Mishkin, 2007. "Inflation Dynamics," International Finance, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 10(3), pages 317-334, December.
    8. Ben S. Bernanke & Mark Gertler & Mark Watson, 1997. "Systematic Monetary Policy and the Effects of Oil Price Shocks," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 28(1), pages 91-157.
    9. Goffe, William L. & Ferrier, Gary D. & Rogers, John, 1994. "Global optimization of statistical functions with simulated annealing," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 60(1-2), pages 65-99.
    10. Romer, Christina D., 1992. "What Ended the Great Depression?," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 52(4), pages 757-784, December.
    11. Lawrence J. Christiano & Terry J. Fitzgerald, 2003. "The Band Pass Filter," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 44(2), pages 435-465, May.
    12. 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.
    13. Luca Benati, 2007. "The Time‐Varying Phillips Correlation," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 39(5), pages 1275-1283, August.
    14. Robert J. Barro, 1982. "United States Inflation and the Choice of Monetary Standard," NBER Chapters, in: Inflation: Causes and Effects, pages 99-110, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Koop, Gary & Pesaran, M. Hashem & Potter, Simon M., 1996. "Impulse response analysis in nonlinear multivariate models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 74(1), pages 119-147, September.
    16. Stock, James H. & Watson, Mark W., 1999. "Business cycle fluctuations in us macroeconomic time series," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & M. Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 1, pages 3-64, Elsevier.
    17. King, Thomas B. & Morley, James, 2007. "In search of the natural rate of unemployment," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(2), pages 550-564, March.
    18. Friedman, Milton, 1977. "Nobel Lecture: Inflation and Unemployment," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 85(3), pages 451-472, June.
    19. Marco Del Negro & Giorgio E. Primiceri, 2015. "Time Varying Structural Vector Autoregressions and Monetary Policy: A Corrigendum," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 82(4), pages 1342-1345.
    20. Lucas, Robert Jr, 1976. "Econometric policy evaluation: A critique," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 1(1), pages 19-46, January.
    21. repec:bla:econom:v:40:y:1973:i:159:p:314-15 is not listed on IDEAS
    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. 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.
    2. Amir-Ahmadi, Pooyan & Matthes, Christian & Wang, Mu-Chun, 2017. "Measurement errors and monetary policy: Then and now," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 66-78.
    3. Sohrab Rafiq, 2014. "What Do Energy Prices Tell Us About UK Inflation?," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 81(322), pages 293-310, April.
    4. Pooyan Amir‐Ahmadi & Christian Matthes & Mu‐Chun Wang, 2016. "Drifts and volatilities under measurement error: Assessing monetary policy shocks over the last century," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 7(2), pages 591-611, July.
    5. Benigno, Pierpaolo & Eggertsson, Gauti, 2023. "It's Baaack: The Surge in Inflation in the 2020s and the Return of the Non-Linear Phillips Curve," CEPR Discussion Papers 18116, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.

    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. Luca Benati, 2005. "U.K. Monetary Regimes and Macroeconomic Stylised Facts," Computing in Economics and Finance 2005 107, Society for Computational Economics.
    2. Mallick, Debdulal, 2019. "Policy regimes and the shape of the Phillips curve in Australia," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 41(6), pages 1077-1094.
    3. Magnus Reif, 2020. "Macroeconomics, Nonlinearities, and the Business Cycle," ifo Beiträge zur Wirtschaftsforschung, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, number 87, September.
    4. Todd E. Clark & Stephen J. Terry, 2010. "Time Variation in the Inflation Passthrough of Energy Prices," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 42(7), pages 1419-1433, October.
    5. Christiane Baumeister & Gert Peersman, 2013. "Time-Varying Effects of Oil Supply Shocks on the US Economy," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 5(4), pages 1-28, October.
    6. Philippe Goulet Coulombe, 2024. "The macroeconomy as a random forest," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 39(3), pages 401-421, April.
    7. Ritschl, Albrecht & Uebele, Martin & Sarferaz, Samad, 2008. "The U.S. Business Cycle, 1867-1995: A Dynamic Factor Approach," CEPR Discussion Papers 7069, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    8. Liu, Yuelin & Morley, James, 2014. "Structural evolution of the postwar U.S. economy," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 50-68.
    9. Luca Benati, 2008. "Investigating Inflation Persistence Across Monetary Regimes," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 123(3), pages 1005-1060.
    10. repec:ehl:wpaper:22305 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Luca Benati & Paolo Surico, 2009. "VAR Analysis and the Great Moderation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(4), pages 1636-1652, September.
    12. Valcarcel, Victor J. & Wohar, Mark E., 2013. "Changes in the oil price-inflation pass-through," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 24-42.
    13. Baumeister, Christiane & Liu, Philip & Mumtaz, Haroon, 2013. "Changes in the effects of monetary policy on disaggregate price dynamics," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 37(3), pages 543-560.
    14. Guglielmo Maria Caporale & Luis Alberiko Gil‐Alana & Tommaso Trani, 2022. "On the persistence of UK inflation: A long‐range dependence approach," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 27(1), pages 439-454, January.
    15. Hasanov, Mübariz & Araç, Aysen & Telatar, Funda, 2010. "Nonlinearity and structural stability in the Phillips curve: Evidence from Turkey," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 27(5), pages 1103-1115, September.
    16. Cross, Jamie & Nguyen, Bao H., 2017. "The relationship between global oil price shocks and China's output: A time-varying analysis," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 79-91.
    17. Haroon Mumtaz & Paolo Surico, 2009. "Time-varying yield curve dynamics and monetary policy," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 24(6), pages 895-913.
    18. Joshua C. C. Chan, 2017. "The Stochastic Volatility in Mean Model With Time-Varying Parameters: An Application to Inflation Modeling," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 35(1), pages 17-28, January.
    19. Alfred A. Haug & Ian P. King, 2011. "Empirical Evidence on Inflation and Unemployment in the Long Run," Department of Economics - Working Papers Series 1128, The University of Melbourne.
    20. Delle Monache, Davide & Petrella, Ivan, 2017. "Adaptive models and heavy tails with an application to inflation forecasting," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 33(2), pages 482-501.
    21. 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.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Bayesian VARs; globalisation; Great Depression; great inflation; identified VARs; lucas critique; Phillips trade-off; stochastic volatility; time-varying parameters;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E30 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - General (includes Measurement and Data)
    • E32 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Business Fluctuations; Cycles

    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:ecb:ecbwps:20101176. 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: Official Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/emieude.html .

    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.