IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/fip/fedbne/y1999ijanp37-49.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Is inflation dead?

Author

Listed:
  • Roger E. Brinner

Abstract

In the past few years the United States has enjoyed the unique economic duet of very low unemployment and declining price inflation. For decades, we have come to associate tight labor markets with accelerating wages and prices. But in 1997, the unemployment rate sank below 5 percent, and neither wage nor price inflation became a problem. Have our inflation processes fundamentally changed for the better? Are we in a new era of permanently better economic performance due to new behavior by our citizens? Or are we simply enjoying good luck in the form of positive supply shocks? A careful reading of the full inflation story reveals that nominal wage inflation has been subdued by exceptionally modest price inflation, according to the author. Real, or price-adjusted, wage inflation has been increasing in response to low unemployment, just as in past decades. Price inflation has been held down by a set of \"supply shocks,\" including a strong dollar, falling energy prices, and a cost-reducing regime shift in the healthcare industry. Inflation is not dead, and as supply shocks shift to neutral or worse, tight labor markets will create a traditional inflation problem.

Suggested Citation

  • Roger E. Brinner, 1999. "Is inflation dead?," New England Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, issue Jan, pages 37-49.
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedbne:y:1999:i:jan:p:37-49
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.bostonfed.org/economic/neer/neer1999/neer199c.htm
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: http://www.bostonfed.org/economic/neer/neer1999/neer199c.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Otto Eckstein & Thomas A. Wilson, 1962. "The Determination of Money Wages in American Industry," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 76(3), pages 379-414.
    2. Robert J. Gordon, 1972. "Wage-Price Controls and the Shifting Phillips Curve," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 3(2), pages 385-421.
    3. Roger E. Brinner, 1977. "The Death of the Phillips Curve Reconsidered," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 91(3), pages 389-418.
    4. A. W. Phillips, 1958. "The Relation Between Unemployment and the Rate of Change of Money Wage Rates in the United Kingdom, 1861–1957," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 25(100), pages 283-299, November.
    5. George L. Perry, 1970. "Changing Labor Markets and Inflation," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 1(3), pages 411-448.
    6. Robert J. Gordon, 1972. "Wage-Price Controls and the Shifting Phillips Curve," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 3(2), pages 385-430.
    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. Rebecca L Driver & Jennifer V Greenslade & Richard G Pierse, 2003. "The role of expectations in estimates of the NAIRU in the United States and the United Kingdom," Bank of England working papers 180, Bank of England.
    2. Meyler, Aidan, 1999. "The Non-Accelerating Inflation Rate of Unemployment (NAIRU) in a Small Open Economy: The Irish Context," Research Technical Papers 5/RT/99, Central Bank of Ireland.
    3. Lynn E. Browne, 1999. "U.S economic performance: good fortune, bubble, or new era?," New England Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, issue May, pages 3-20.

    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. Aurélien Goutsmedt & Goulven Rubin, 2018. "Robert J. Gordon and the introduction of the natural rate hypothesis in the Keynesian framework," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) halshs-01821825, HAL.
    2. Nikolsko-Rzhevskyy, Alex & Papell, David H., 2012. "Taylor rules and the Great Inflation," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 34(4), pages 903-918.
    3. Robert J. Gordon, 2011. "The History of the Phillips Curve: Consensus and Bifurcation," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 78(309), pages 10-50, January.
    4. Ahmad Al-Samarrie & John Kraft & Blaine Roberts, 1977. "The Effects of Phases I, II, and III on Wages, Prices, and Profit Margins in the Manufacturing Sector of the United States," NBER Chapters, in: Analysis of Inflation: 1965–1974, pages 241-298, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Kugler, Adriana & Kugler, Maurice, 2003. "The labor market effects of payroll taxes in a middle-income country: evidence from Colombia," Discussion Paper Series In Economics And Econometrics 0306, Economics Division, School of Social Sciences, University of Southampton.
    6. Adriana Kugler & Maurice Kugler, 2009. "Labor Market Effects of Payroll Taxes in Developing Countries: Evidence from Colombia," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 57(2), pages 335-358, January.
    7. Aurélien Goutsmedt, 2021. "From the Stagflation to the Great Inflation: Explaining the US economy of the 1970s," Revue d'économie politique, Dalloz, vol. 131(3), pages 557-582.
    8. Marcel Chassot, 1982. "Zur Asymmetrie des Lohnverhaltens - Das Beispiel der schweizerischen Phillips-Kurve: 1959-1979," Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics (SJES), Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics (SSES), vol. 118(IV), pages 393-407, December.
    9. Kugler, Adriana & Kugler, Maurice, 2003. "The Labor Market Effects of Payroll Taxes in a Middle-Income Country: Evidence from Colombia," IZA Discussion Papers 852, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    10. Richard K. Crump & Stefano Eusepi & Marc Giannoni & Aysegul Sahin, 2019. "A Unified Approach to Measuring u," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 50(1 (Spring), pages 143-238.
    11. Sung Y. Kwack, 1974. "Price linkage in an interdependent world economy: price responses to exchange rate and activity changes," International Finance Discussion Papers 56, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    12. Sung Y. Kwack, 1973. "The effects of foreign inflation on domestic prices and the relative price advantage of exchange rate changes," International Finance Discussion Papers 35, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    13. Sparks, Gordon R & Wilton, David A, 1971. "Determinants of Negotiated Wage Increases: An Empirical Analysis," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 39(5), pages 739-750, September.
    14. Jordà, Òscar & Nechio, Fernanda, 2023. "Inflation and wage growth since the pandemic," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 156(C).
    15. Adriana Kugler & Maurice Kugler, 2003. "The labor market effects of payroll taxes in a middle-income country: Evidence from Colombia," Economics Working Papers 721, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
    16. Bazhal, Iurii, 2015. "Impact of Wage Policy on Economic Growth in Transitive Countries and New Interpretation of the Phillips Curve," MPRA Paper 67106, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 07 Oct 2015.
    17. 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.
    18. George A. Akerlof, 2003. "Behavioral Macroeconomics and Macroeconomic Behavior," The American Economist, Sage Publications, vol. 47(1), pages 25-47, March.
    19. Jeffrey Schafer, 2022. "Inflation Expectations and Their Formation: Working Paper 2022-03," Working Papers 57398, Congressional Budget Office.
    20. Alex Domash & Lawrence H. Summers, 2022. "How Tight are U.S. Labor Markets?," NBER Working Papers 29739, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Inflation (Finance);

    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:fip:fedbne:y:1999:i:jan:p:37-49. 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 Spozio (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/frbbous.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.