IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/rbz/wpaper/10211.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Is the Phillips curve framework still useful for understanding inflation dynamics in South Africa

Author

Listed:
  • Byron Botha
  • Lauren Kuhn
  • Daan Steenkamp

Abstract

The Phillips curve is a commonly used benchmark for modelling inflation, based on the intuition that greater economic slack (i.e. a larger output gap) should be associated with decelerating inflation. But there is an ongoing debate about the usefulness of the Phillips curve to explain inflation. Explanations for an observed weakening between measures of slack and inflation have included: mismeasurement of economic slack, the influence of other factors (such as the exchange rate, foreign inflation or wages) or whether some components of the inflation basket are more sensitive to the business cycle than other. To advance this discussion, we consider an augmented Phillips curve specification that accounts for various drivers of inflation and test different measures of economic slack in forecasting inflation and GDP outcomes. We show that a Phillips curve relationship continues to exist in South Africa. We find the slack measure that performs best is one that includes labour market indicators and indicated in 2019Q3 that capacity pressure was low. While the output gap-inflation channel continues to operate, the contributions to inflationary pressures of factors such as past inflation and inflation expectations have been much more important over recent years.

Suggested Citation

  • Byron Botha & Lauren Kuhn & Daan Steenkamp, 2020. "Is the Phillips curve framework still useful for understanding inflation dynamics in South Africa," Working Papers 10211, South African Reserve Bank.
    • Handle: RePEc:rbz:wpaper:10211
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.resbank.co.za/content/dam/sarb/publications/working-papers/2020/10211/WP-2007.pdf
    File Function: Revision
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kingdon, Geeta & Knight, John, 2006. "The measurement of unemployment when unemployment is high," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 13(3), pages 291-315, June.
    2. Jed Armstrong, 2015. "The Reserve Bank of New Zealand’s output gap indicator suite and its real-time properties," Reserve Bank of New Zealand Analytical Notes series AN2015/08, Reserve Bank of New Zealand.
    3. Kevin S. Nell, 2018. "Re‐Examining the Role of Structural Change and Nonlinearities in a Phillips Curve Model for South Africa," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 86(2), pages 173-196, June.
    4. Òscar Jordà & Chitra Marti & Fernanda Nechio & Eric Tallman, 2019. "Inflation: Stress-Testing the Phillips Curve," FRBSF Economic Letter, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
    5. Alain Kabundi & Asi Mbelu, 2018. "Has the Exchange Rate Pass‐Through changed in South Africa?," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 86(3), pages 339-360, September.
    6. Byron Botha & Shaun de Jager & Franz Ruch & Rudi Steinbach, 2017. "The Quarterly Projection Model of the SARB," Working Papers 8000, South African Reserve Bank.
    7. Johannes Fedderke & Yang Liu, 2018. "Inflation in South Africa: An Assessment of Alternative Inflation Models," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 86(2), pages 197-230, June.
    8. Monique Reid & Gideon Rand, 2015. "A Sticky Information Phillips Curve for South Africa," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 83(4), pages 506-526, December.
    9. Thulisile Radebe, 2019. "South Africa s disinflation A cyclical phenomenon August 2019," Occasional Bulletin of Economic Notes 9480, South African Reserve Bank.
    10. Blanchard, Oliver & Cerutti, Eugenio & SUmmers, Lawrence, 2015. "Inflation and Activity - Two Explorations and Their Monetary Policy Implications," Working Paper Series 15-070, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
    11. Diebold, Francis X & Mariano, Roberto S, 2002. "Comparing Predictive Accuracy," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 20(1), pages 134-144, January.
    12. Marina Marinkov & Jean‐pierre Geldenhuys, 2007. "Cyclical Unemployment And Cyclical Output: An Estimation Of Okun'S Coefficient For South Africa," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 75(3), pages 373-390, September.
    13. Byron Botha & Franz Ruch & Rudi Steinbach, 2018. "Update to the Quarterly Projection Model," Occasional Bulletin of Economic Notes 8879, South African Reserve Bank.
    14. James H. Stock & Mark W. Watson, 2019. "Slack and Cyclically Sensitive Inflation," NBER Working Papers 25987, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Anneri M. Oosthuizen & George A. Thopil & Roula Inglesi-Lotz, 2019. "The relationship between renewable energy and retail electricity prices: Panel evidence from OECD countries," Working Papers 200, Economic Research Southern Africa.
    16. Vafa Anvari & Nelne Ehlers & Rudi Steinbach, 2014. "A semistructural approach to estimate South Africas potential output," Working Papers 6504, South African Reserve Bank.
    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. Christopher Loewald & David Faulkner & Konstantin Makrelov, 2020. "Time consistency and economic growth a case study of south african macroeconomic policy," Working Papers 10421, South African Reserve Bank.
    2. Andrew Phiri, 2022. "Pursuing the Phillips Curve in an African Monarchy: A Swazi Case Study," Contemporary Economics, University of Economics and Human Sciences in Warsaw., vol. 16(4), December.
    3. Chris Loewald & Konstantin Makrelov & Ekaterina Pirozhkova, 2022. "TheshorttermcostsofreducingtrendinflationinSouthAfrica," Working Papers 11029, South African Reserve Bank.
    4. Dladla, Pholile & Malikane, Christopher, 2022. "Inflation dynamics in an emerging market: The case of South Africa," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 262-271.
    5. Monique B. Reid & Pierre L. Siklos, 2022. "How Firms and Experts View The Phillips Curve: Evidence from Individual and Aggregate Data from South Africa," Emerging Markets Finance and Trade, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 58(12), pages 3355-3376, September.

    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. Dladla, Pholile & Malikane, Christopher, 2022. "Inflation dynamics in an emerging market: The case of South Africa," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 262-271.
    2. Philippe Goulet Coulombe, 2021. "The Macroeconomy as a Random Forest," Working Papers 21-05, Chair in macroeconomics and forecasting, University of Quebec in Montreal's School of Management.
    3. Johannes W. Fedderke, 2022. "Identifying steady‐state growth and inflation in the South African economy, 1960–2020," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 90(3), pages 279-300, September.
    4. Thomas Hasenzagl & Filippo Pellegrino & Lucrezia Reichlin & Giovanni Ricco, 2022. "A Model of the Fed's View on Inflation," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 104(4), pages 686-704, October.
    5. 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.
    6. J. David López-Salido & Francesca Loria, 2020. "Inflation at Risk," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2020-013, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    7. Sune Karlsson & Pär Österholm, 2020. "A note on the stability of the Swedish Phillips curve," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 59(6), pages 2573-2612, December.
    8. Byron Botha & Eric Schaling, 2020. "Commodity Prices and Policy Stabilisation in South Africa," Working Papers 10225, South African Reserve Bank.
    9. Ricardo Summa & Julia Braga, 2020. "The (conflict-augmented) Phillips Curve is alive and well," Working Papers 0055, ASTRIL - Associazione Studi e Ricerche Interdisciplinari sul Lavoro.
    10. Philippe Goulet Coulombe, 2020. "The Macroeconomy as a Random Forest," Papers 2006.12724, arXiv.org, revised Mar 2021.
    11. 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.
    12. Johannes Fedderke, 2012. "The Cost of Rigidity: The Case of the South African Labor Market," Comparative Economic Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Association for Comparative Economic Studies, vol. 54(4), pages 809-842, December.
    13. Kabundi, Alain & Poon, Aubrey & Wu, Ping, 2023. "A time-varying Phillips curve with global factors: Are global factors important?," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 126(C).
    14. Lasha Arevadze & Tamta Sopromadze & Giorgi Tsutskiridze & Shalva Mkhatrishvili, 2020. "Identifying the Phillips Curve in Georgia," NBG Working Papers 01/2020, National Bank of Georgia.
    15. Tibor Szendrei & Arnab Bhattacharjee, 2024. "Momentum Informed Inflation-at-Risk," Papers 2408.12286, arXiv.org.
    16. Cobus Vermeulen, 2023. "The inherent uncertainties in output gap estimation a South African perspective," Working Papers 11051, South African Reserve Bank.
    17. López-Salido, J David & Loria, Francesca, 2019. "Inflation at Risk," CEPR Discussion Papers 14074, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    18. Rodnyansky, Alexander & Van der Ghote, Alejandro & Wales, Daniel, 2022. "Product quality, measured inflation and monetary policy," Working Paper Series 2680, European Central Bank.
    19. Philippe Goulet Coulombe, 2022. "A Neural Phillips Curve and a Deep Output Gap," Working Papers 22-01, Chair in macroeconomics and forecasting, University of Quebec in Montreal's School of Management.
    20. Eric Schaling & Kgotso Morema, 2022. "Optimalinterestrategapsforflexibleinflationtargeting," Working Papers 11037, South African Reserve Bank.

    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:rbz:wpaper:10211. 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: Jessica VanWyk (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/rbagvza.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.