IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/fip/fedfwp/97316.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Active Role of the Natural Rate of Unemployment during Cyclical Recoveries

Author

Listed:
  • Robert E. Hall
  • Marianna Kudlyak

Abstract

We propose that the natural rate of unemployment has an active role in the business cycle, in contrast to the prevailing view that the rate is essentially constant. We demonstrate that this tendency to treat the natural rate as near-constant would explain the surprisingly low slope of the Phillips curve. We show that the natural rate closely tracked the actual rate during the long recovery that began in 2009 and ended in 2020. We explain how the common finding of research in the Phillips-curve framework of low-often extremely low-response of inflation to unemployment could be the result of fairly close tracking of the natural rate and the actual rate in recoveries. Our interpretation of the data contrasts to that of most Phillips-curve studies, that conclude that inflation has little relation to unemployment. We suggest that the at Phillips curve is an illusion caused by assuming that the natural rate of unemployment has little or no movement during recoveries.

Suggested Citation

  • Robert E. Hall & Marianna Kudlyak, 2023. "The Active Role of the Natural Rate of Unemployment during Cyclical Recoveries," Working Paper Series 2023-33, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedfwp:97316
    DOI: 10.24148/wp2023-33
    Note: Kudlyak presented some material from this paper as a part of her Alejandro Justiniano memorial keynote address at the annual Federal Reserve System Macroeconomics meeting, November 9 and 10, 2021.
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.frbsf.org/wp-content/uploads/wp2023-33.pdf
    File Function: Full Text
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.24148/wp2023-33?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. Michael Dotsey & Shigeru Fujita & Tom Stark, 2018. "Do Phillips Curves Conditionally Help to Forecast Inflation?," International Journal of Central Banking, International Journal of Central Banking, vol. 14(4), pages 43-92, September.
    2. Hooper, Peter & Mishkin, Frederic S. & Sufi, Amir, 2020. "Prospects for inflation in a high pressure economy: Is the Phillips curve dead or is it just hibernating?," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 74(1), pages 26-62.
    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. Manuel M. F. Martins & Fabio Verona, 2021. "Inflation Dynamics and Forecast: Frequency Matters," CEF.UP Working Papers 2101, Universidade do Porto, Faculdade de Economia do Porto.
    2. repec:zbw:bofrdp:2021_008 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Manuel M. F. Martins & Fabio Verona, 2021. "Inflation Dynamics and Forecast: Frequency Matters," CEF.UP Working Papers 2101, Universidade do Porto, Faculdade de Economia do Porto.
    4. Barkan, Oren & Benchimol, Jonathan & Caspi, Itamar & Cohen, Eliya & Hammer, Allon & Koenigstein, Noam, 2023. "Forecasting CPI inflation components with Hierarchical Recurrent Neural Networks," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 39(3), pages 1145-1162.
    5. Manuel M. F. Martins & Fabio Verona, 2020. "Forecasting Inflation with the New Keynesian Phillips Curve: Frequency Matters," CEF.UP Working Papers 2001, Universidade do Porto, Faculdade de Economia do Porto.
    6. 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.
    7. Jason Furman & Gita Gopinath & Valerie A. Ramey, 2022. "Jackson Hole 2022 - Panel - An End to the Pre-Pandemic Trends or Just a Temporary Interruption?," Proceedings - Economic Policy Symposium - Jackson Hole, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, August.
    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. Todd E. Clark & Taeyoung Doh, 2011. "A Bayesian evaluation of alternative models of trend inflation," Working Papers (Old Series) 1134, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland.
    10. Patrik Kupkovic, 2020. "R-star in Transition Economies: Evidence from Slovakia," Working and Discussion Papers WP 3/2020, Research Department, National Bank of Slovakia.
    11. Michael McLeay & Silvana Tenreyro, 2020. "Optimal Inflation and the Identification of the Phillips Curve," NBER Macroeconomics Annual, University of Chicago Press, vol. 34(1), pages 199-255.
    12. Wellmann, Susanne, 2023. "The Phillips curve in the euro area: New evidence using country-level data," University of Tübingen Working Papers in Business and Economics 156, University of Tuebingen, Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences, School of Business and Economics.
    13. Niko Hauzenberger & Florian Huber & Gary Koop & James Mitchell, 2020. "Bayesian Modelling of TVP-VARs Using Regression Trees," Working Papers 2308, University of Strathclyde Business School, Department of Economics, revised Aug 2023.
    14. Tom D. Holden, 2024. "Robust Real Rate Rules," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 92(5), pages 1521-1551, September.
    15. Philipp F. M. Baumann & Enzo Rossi & Alexander Volkmann, 2020. "What Drives Inflation and How: Evidence from Additive Mixed Models Selected by cAIC," Papers 2006.06274, arXiv.org, revised Aug 2022.
    16. Granziera, Eleonora & Sekhposyan, Tatevik, 2019. "Predicting relative forecasting performance: An empirical investigation," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 35(4), pages 1636-1657.
    17. David Staines, 2023. "Stochastic Equilibrium the Lucas Critique and Keynesian Economics," Papers 2312.16214, arXiv.org, revised Jun 2024.
    18. Simon Smith & Allan Timmermann & Jonathan H. Wright, 2023. "Breaks in the Phillips Curve: Evidence from Panel Data," NBER Working Papers 31153, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Bańbura, Marta & Bobeica, Elena, 2023. "Does the Phillips curve help to forecast euro area inflation?," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 364-390.
    20. 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.
    21. Odendahl, Florens & Rossi, Barbara & Sekhposyan, Tatevik, 2023. "Evaluating forecast performance with state dependence," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 237(2).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    business cycles; recoveries; unemployment; recessions; monetary policy; natural rate of unemployment; NAIRU; inflation; anchor;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E32 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Business Fluctuations; Cycles
    • J63 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Turnover; Vacancies; Layoffs
    • J64 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Unemployment: Models, Duration, Incidence, and Job Search

    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:fip:fedfwp:97316. 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: Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco Research Library (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/frbsfus.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.