Inflation, Output, and Markup Dynamics with Forward-Looking Wage and Price Setters

Inflation, Output, and Markup Dynamics with Forward-Looking Wage and Price Setters
Author: Louis Phaneuf
Publisher:
Total Pages: 37
Release: 2015
Genre: Business enterprises
ISBN:

We formulate a medium-scale DSGE model that emphasizes a strong interplay between a roundabout production structure and a working capital channel that requires firms to borrow funds to finance the costs of all their variable inputs and not just the wage bill. Despite an absence of backward-looking price and wage indexation, our model is able to account for (i) a persistent and hump-shaped response of inflation to a monetary policy shock, (ii) a large and persistent response of output to a monetary policy shock, (iii) a mild "price puzzle," (iv) a procyclical price markup conditional on a monetary shock, (v) non-inertial responses of inflation to non-monetary shocks, and (vi) a negative unconditional autocorrelation of the first difference of inflation that is consistent with the data. A medium-scale model relying on backward indexation of wages and prices to past inflation fails along several of these dimensions.

Inflation Dynamics

Inflation Dynamics
Author: Jordi Galí
Publisher:
Total Pages: 23
Release: 2000
Genre: Inflation (Finance)
ISBN:

We develop and estimate a structural model of inflation that allows for a fraction of firms that use a backward looking rule to set prices. The model nests the purely forward looking New Keynesian Phillips curve as a particular case. We use measures of arginal cost as the relevant determinant of inflation, as the theory suggests, instead of an ad-hoc output gap. Real marginal costs are a significant and quantitatively important determinant of inflation. Backward looking price setting, while statistically significant, is not quantitatively important. Thus, we conclude that the New Keynesian Phillips curve provides a good first approximation to the dynamics of inflation.

The Wage-Price Spiral

The Wage-Price Spiral
Author: Ms.Magda E. Kandil
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
Total Pages: 38
Release: 2003-08-01
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1451858019

Using quarterly time-series data for a sample of twelve industrial countries, the paper investigates the dynamics of nominal wage and price adjustments in the face of aggregate demand shocks. The evidence illustrates patterns of the wage-price spiral and accompanying fluctuations. During economic expansions, the overlap of nominal adjustments in labor and product markets prolongs output expansion while maintaining or increasing the standard of living. In contrast, structural and institutional settings appear to have moderated the severity of the effects of contractionary demand shocks on real output growth and the standard of living in the variety of countries under investigation.

The Effects of Forward-Versus Backward-Looking Wage Indexationon Price Stabilization Programs

The Effects of Forward-Versus Backward-Looking Wage Indexationon Price Stabilization Programs
Author: Mr. Joe Crowley
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
Total Pages: 35
Release: 1997-04-01
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1451893051

A standard open-economy model is used to show that price stabilization programs are more likely to succeed if labor contracts specify forward-looking wage indexation. Compared with contracts specifying backward-looking wage indexation or wages based on static expectations, such contracts will result in a greater reduction in inflation with lower output costs, smaller misalignment of real wages, smaller outflows of reserves, smaller disruptions caused by policy announcements, and a reduced impact of some shocks during price stabilization programs. These results are generally true whether or not capital is mobile and whether or not expectations are rational.

Designing a Simple Loss Function for Central Banks

Designing a Simple Loss Function for Central Banks
Author: Davide Debortoli
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
Total Pages: 56
Release: 2017-07-21
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1484311752

Yes, it makes a lot of sense. This paper studies how to design simple loss functions for central banks, as parsimonious approximations to social welfare. We show, both analytically and quantitatively, that simple loss functions should feature a high weight on measures of economic activity, sometimes even larger than the weight on inflation. Two main factors drive our result. First, stabilizing economic activity also stabilizes other welfare relevant variables. Second, the estimated model features mitigated inflation distortions due to a low elasticity of substitution between monopolistic goods and a low interest rate sensitivity of demand. The result holds up in the presence of measurement errors, with large shocks that generate a trade-off between stabilizing inflation and resource utilization, and also when ensuring a low probability of hitting the zero lower bound on interest rates.

The Inflation-Targeting Debate

The Inflation-Targeting Debate
Author: Ben S. Bernanke
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 469
Release: 2007-11-01
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0226044734

Over the past fifteen years, a significant number of industrialized and middle-income countries have adopted inflation targeting as a framework for monetary policymaking. As the name suggests, in such inflation-targeting regimes, the central bank is responsible for achieving a publicly announced target for the inflation rate. While the objective of controlling inflation enjoys wide support among both academic experts and policymakers, and while the countries that have followed this model have generally experienced good macroeconomic outcomes, many important questions about inflation targeting remain. In Inflation Targeting, a distinguished group of contributors explores the many underexamined dimensions of inflation targeting—its potential, its successes, and its limitations—from both a theoretical and an empirical standpoint, and for both developed and emerging economies. The volume opens with a discussion of the optimal formulation of inflation-targeting policy and continues with a debate about the desirability of such a model for the United States. The concluding chapters discuss the special problems of inflation targeting in emerging markets, including the Czech Republic, Poland, and Hungary.

Inflation and Output

Inflation and Output
Author: Palle Schelde Andersen
Publisher:
Total Pages: 96
Release: 1989
Genre: Deflation (Finance)
ISBN:

Reviews the short and long-run trends in output inflation and money supply growth. Discusses major models of the wage-price mechanisism and then turns to the empirical evidence with respect to the parameters of wage and price.

Battle of the Markups

Battle of the Markups
Author: Frederick van der Ploeg
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2023
Genre: Inflation (Finance)
ISBN:

After the post-Covid rise in inflation, a debate has emerged whether this inflation is "seller-driven" and, if so, how policy should respond. We build a model to capture the underlying distributional conflict between wage- and price-setters both wishing to attain a certain markup. We highlight a new "aspirational channel" of monetary transmission: by influencing cyclical conditions, a central bank can control inflation through affecting markup aspirations of workers and firms. We establish conditions under which an inflationary situation characterized by inconsistent aspirations requires a reduction in economic activity, to push demands of workers and firms towards consistency. We find that countercyclical markups and/or a flat Phillips curve call for more "dovish" monetary policy (responding less to inflation deviations, more to the output gap). Estimating price markup cyclicality across 43 countries, we find that contractionary monetary shocks indeed have stronger anti-inflationary effects in countries with greater markup procyclicality.