IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/eecrev/v52y2008i8p1424-1437.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Testing price equations

Author

Listed:
  • Fair, Ray C.

Abstract

How inflation and unemployment are related in both the short run and long run is perhaps the key question in macroeconomics. This paper tests various price equations using quarterly U.S. data from 1952 to the present. Issues treated are the following. (1) Estimating price and wage equations in which wages affect prices and vice versa versus estimating "reduced-form" price equations with no wage explanatory variables. (2) Estimating price equations in (log) level terms, first difference (i.e., inflation) terms, and second difference (i.e., change in inflation) terms. (3) The treatment of expectations. (4) The choice and functional form of the demand variable. (5) The choice of the cost-shock variable. The results suggest that the best specification is a price equation in level terms imbedded in a price-wage model, where the wage equation is also in level terms. The best cost-shock variable is the import price deflator, and the best demand variable is the unemployment rate. There is some evidence of a nonlinear effect of the unemployment rate on the price level at low values of the unemployment rate. Many of the results in this paper are contrary to common views in the literature, but the empirical support for them is strong.

Suggested Citation

  • Fair, Ray C., 2008. "Testing price equations," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 52(8), pages 1424-1437, November.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:eecrev:v:52:y:2008:i:8:p:1424-1437
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0014-2921(08)00063-9
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Fuhrer, Jeffrey C, 1997. "The (Un)Importance of Forward-Looking Behavior in Price Specifications," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 29(3), pages 338-350, August.
    2. Rudd, Jeremy & Whelan, Karl, 2005. "New tests of the new-Keynesian Phillips curve," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(6), pages 1167-1181, September.
    3. Jeremy Rudd & Karl Whelan, 2007. "Modeling Inflation Dynamics: A Critical Review of Recent Research," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 39(s1), pages 155-170, February.
    4. Fair, Ray C & Taylor, John B, 1990. "Full Information Estimation and Stochastic Simulation of Models with Rational Expectations," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 5(4), pages 381-392, Oct.-Dec..
    5. Jeremy Rudd & Karl Whelan, 2006. "Can Rational Expectations Sticky-Price Models Explain Inflation Dynamics?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(1), pages 303-320, March.
    6. Olivier Blanchard & Jordi Galí, 2007. "Real Wage Rigidities and the New Keynesian Model," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 39(s1), pages 35-65, February.
    7. George L. Perry, 1980. "Inflation in Theory and Practice," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 11(1, Tenth ), pages 207-260.
    8. Brunner, Karl & Meltzer, Allan H., 1976. "The Phillips curve," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 1(1), pages 1-18, January.
    9. Gali, Jordi & Gertler, Mark, 1999. "Inflation dynamics: A structural econometric analysis," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(2), pages 195-222, October.
    10. Linde, Jesper, 2005. "Estimating New-Keynesian Phillips curves: A full information maximum likelihood approach," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(6), pages 1135-1149, September.
    11. Lucas, Robert Jr, 1976. "Econometric policy evaluation: A critique," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 1(1), pages 19-46, January.
    12. Kurmann, Andre, 2007. "VAR-based estimation of Euler equations with an application to New Keynesian pricing," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 31(3), pages 767-796, March.
    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. Fair, Ray C., 2012. "Has macro progressed?," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 34(1), pages 2-10.
    2. Ray C. Fair, 2010. "Possible Macroeconomic Consequences of Large Future Federal Government Deficits," NBER Chapters, in: Tax Policy and the Economy, Volume 25, pages 89-108, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Dufour, Jean-Marie & Khalaf, Lynda & Kichian, Maral, 2013. "Identification-robust analysis of DSGE and structural macroeconomic models," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(3), pages 340-350.
    4. Ray Fair, 2009. "Possible Macroeconomic Consequences of Large Future Federal Government Deficits," Yale School of Management Working Papers amz2492, Yale School of Management.
    5. 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.
    6. Malikane, Christopher, 2014. "A new Keynesian triangle Phillips curve," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 247-255.
    7. Malikane, Christopher, 2012. "Inflation dynamics and the cost channel in emerging markets," MPRA Paper 42688, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Wolfgang Pollan, 2013. "US Inflation and Crude Oil Prices. An International Perspective," WIFO Working Papers 451, WIFO.
    9. Karagiannides, Gabriel, 2018. "Exploring the Determinacy Dynamics in an Open Economy," MPRA Paper 89268, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Hossein Hassani & Abdol S. Soofi & Anatoly Zhigljavsky, 2013. "Predicting inflation dynamics with singular spectrum analysis," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 176(3), pages 743-760, June.
    11. Ray Fair, 2009. "Possible Macroeconomic Consequences of Large Future Federal Government Deficits," Yale School of Management Working Papers amz2492, Yale School of Management.
    12. Malikane, Christopher & Mokoka, Tshepo, 2012. "Monetary policy credibility: A Phillips curve view," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 52(3), pages 266-271.
    13. Malikane, Christopher, 2012. "The microfoundations of the Keynesian wage-price spiral," MPRA Paper 42921, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 29 Nov 2012.
    14. Xu, Yingying & Chang, Hsu-Ling & Lobonţ, Oana-Ramona & Su, Chi-Wei, 2016. "Modeling heterogeneous inflation expectations: empirical evidence from demographic data?," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 153-163.
    15. Malikane Christopher, 2023. "A Traditional Nominal Wage Phillips Curve: Theory and Evidence," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 99(324), pages 108-121, March.

    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. Sophocles Mavroeidis & Mikkel Plagborg-Møller & James H. Stock, 2014. "Empirical Evidence on Inflation Expectations in the New Keynesian Phillips Curve," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 52(1), pages 124-188, March.
    2. Fair, Ray C., 2007. "Evaluating Inflation Targeting Using a Macroeconometric Model," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 1, pages 1-52.
    3. Ichiro Muto, 2009. "Estimating A New Keynesian Phillips Curve With A Corrected Measure Of Real Marginal Cost: Evidence In Japan," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 47(4), pages 667-684, October.
    4. James M. Nason & Gregor W. Smith, 2008. "The New Keynesian Phillips curve : lessons from single-equation econometric estimation," Economic Quarterly, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, vol. 94(Fall), pages 361-395.
    5. Fair, Ray C., 2007. "Testing Price Equations," Kiel Working Papers 1342, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    6. Giray Gozgor, 2013. "The New Keynesian Phillips Curve in an Inflation Targeting Country: The Case of Turkey," International Journal of Business and Economic Sciences Applied Research (IJBESAR), International Hellenic University (IHU), Kavala Campus, Greece (formerly Eastern Macedonia and Thrace Institute of Technology - EMaTTech), vol. 6(1), pages 7-18, April.
    7. Thorvardur Tjörvi Ólafsson, 2006. "The New Keynesian Phillips Curve: In Search of Improvements and Adaptation to the Open Economy," Economics wp31_tjorvi, Department of Economics, Central bank of Iceland.
    8. Nymoen, Ragnar & Swensen, Anders Rygh & Tveter, Eivind, 2012. "Interpreting the evidence for New Keynesian models of inflation dynamics," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 34(2), pages 253-263.
    9. Bhavesh Salunkhe & Anuradha Patnaik, 2019. "Inflation Dynamics and Monetary Policy in India: A New Keynesian Phillips Curve Perspective," South Asian Journal of Macroeconomics and Public Finance, , vol. 8(2), pages 144-179, December.
    10. Joseph P. Byrne & Alexandros Kontonikas & Alberto Montagnoli, 2013. "International Evidence on the New Keynesian Phillips Curve Using Aggregate and Disaggregate Data," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 45(5), pages 913-932, August.
    11. Jeremy Rudd & Karl Whelan, 2007. "Modeling Inflation Dynamics: A Critical Review of Recent Research," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 39(s1), pages 155-170, February.
    12. Boug, Pål & Cappelen, Adne & Swensen, Anders Rygh, 2010. "The new Keynesian Phillips curve revisited," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 34(5), pages 858-874, May.
    13. Ferreira, Diego & Palma, Andreza Aparecida, 2015. "Forecasting Inflation with the Phillips Curve: A Dynamic Model Averaging Approach for Brazil," Revista Brasileira de Economia - RBE, EPGE Brazilian School of Economics and Finance - FGV EPGE (Brazil), vol. 69(4), December.
    14. Bardsen, Gunnar & Eitrheim, Oyvind & Jansen, Eilev S. & Nymoen, Ragnar, 2005. "The Econometrics of Macroeconomic Modelling," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199246502.
    15. Jean Imbs & Eric Jondeau & Florian Pelgrin, 2006. "Aggregating Phillips curves," 2006 Meeting Papers 640, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    16. Michael T. Kiley, 2007. "A Quantitative Comparison of Sticky-Price and Sticky-Information Models of Price Setting," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 39(s1), pages 101-125, February.
    17. Joerg Scheibe & David Vines, 2005. "A Phillips Curve For China," CAMA Working Papers 2005-02, Centre for Applied Macroeconomic Analysis, Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University.
    18. repec:zbw:bofism:2005_032 is not listed on IDEAS
    19. Chengsi Zhang & Denise R. Osborn & Dong Heon Kim, 2009. "Observed Inflation Forecasts and the New Keynesian Phillips Curve," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 71(3), pages 375-398, June.
    20. Toshihiro Okada, 2017. "Time to Innovate and Aggregate Fluctuations: a New Keynesian Model with Endogenous Technology," Discussion Paper Series 154, School of Economics, Kwansei Gakuin University, revised Dec 2018.
    21. Ray Fair, 2006. "Evaluating Inflation Targeting Using a Macroeconometric Model," Yale School of Management Working Papers amz2483, Yale School of Management, revised 01 Aug 2007.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Price equations NAIRU;

    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:eee:eecrev:v:52:y:2008:i:8:p:1424-1437. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/eer .

    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.