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Is the US Phillips curve stable? Evidence from Bayesian vector autoregressions

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  • Sune Karlsson
  • Pär Österholm

Abstract

It has been claimed that the fall in US inflation during the Great Recession was surprisingly small. One possible explanation for this is that the Phillips curve is unstable and that its slope was lower around the Great Recession. We investigate the importance of time‐varying parameters using Bayesian vector autoregressions for inflation and unemployment. We find support for time variation in the inflation equation and an unstable Phillips curve that was somewhat flatter between 2005 and 2013. However, conditional forecasts mostly suggest that inflation was not unexpectedly high around the Great Recession, which puts the claim of a “missing disinflation” into question.

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  • Sune Karlsson & Pär Österholm, 2023. "Is the US Phillips curve stable? Evidence from Bayesian vector autoregressions," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 125(1), pages 287-314, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:scandj:v:125:y:2023:i:1:p:287-314
    DOI: 10.1111/sjoe.12508
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    1. Kuo-Hsuan Chin & Xin-Hua Zheng, 2024. "Stability of Phillips Curve: The case of Taiwan," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 44(2), pages 635-651.
    2. Beechey, Meredith & Österholm, Pär & Poon, Aubrey, 2023. "Estimating the US trend short-term interest rate," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 55(PA).

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