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The nominal facts and the October 1979 policy change

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  • William T. Gavin
  • Finn E. Kydland

Abstract

Gavin and Kydland (1999) calculated the cyclical properties of money and prices for the periods before and after the October 1979 policy change. In this article, we extend that work by adding four more years of data and including a study of nominal interest rates and inflation. The adoption of a disinflation policy in October 1979 does not appear to have had a measurable impact on the cyclical properties of real variables. However, it made a dramatic difference in the cyclical properties of nominal variables. We also examine the covariance structure of several nominal relationships: the autocovariance of inflation, the lag from money growth to inflation, and lag from money growth to nominal GDP growth. Generally, the monetary policy in the early period allowed the average inflation rate to ratchet upward with each business cycle. This policy was associated with high variances, high autocorrelations, and high cross-correlations among nominal variables. The moderate inflation policy followed in the second period was associated with lower mean growth rates, less volatility, and lower cross-correlations between money growth and inflation.

Suggested Citation

  • William T. Gavin & Finn E. Kydland, 2000. "The nominal facts and the October 1979 policy change," Working Papers 2000-013, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedlwp:2000-013
    DOI: 10.20955/wp.2000.013
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    Cited by:

    1. William T. Gavin & Athena T. Theodorou, 2005. "A common model approach to macroeconomics: using panel data to reduce sampling error," Journal of Forecasting, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 24(3), pages 203-219.
    2. Goran Petrevski & Borce Trenovski & Biljana Tashevska, 2019. "The effectiveness of fiscal and monetary policies in a small open economy – the case of Macedonia," Post-Communist Economies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 31(6), pages 805-821, November.
    3. Gavin, William T. & Kydland, Finn E. & Pakko, Michael R., 2007. "Monetary policy, taxes, and the business cycle," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(6), pages 1587-1611, September.
    4. Finn E. Kydland & Peter Rupert & Roman Šustek, 2016. "Housing Dynamics Over The Business Cycle," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 57(4), pages 1149-1177, November.
    5. Goran Petrevski & Jane Bogoev & Dragan Tevdovski, 2016. "Fiscal and monetary policy effects in three South Eastern European economies," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 50(2), pages 415-441, March.

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