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A new look at historical monetary policy (and the great inflation) through the lens of a persistence-dependent policy rule

Author

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  • Richard Ashley
  • Kwok Ping Tsang
  • Randal Verbrugge

Abstract

The origins of the Great Inflation, a central 20th-century U.S. macroeconomic event, remain contested. Prominent explanations are poor inflation forecasts or inaccurate output gap measurement. An alternative view is that the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) was unwilling to fight inflation, perhaps due to political pressures. Here, we sort this out via a novel econometric approach, disaggregating the real-time unemployment and inflation time series entering the FOMC historical policy reaction-function into persistence components, using one-sided Fourier filtering; this implicitly estimates the unemployment gap in actual use. We find compelling evidence for (economically interpretable) persistence-dependence in both variables. Furthermore, our results support the “unwilling to fight” view: the FOMC’s unemployment gap responses were essentially unchanged pre- and post-Volcker, while its inflation responses sharpened markedly starting with Volcker.

Suggested Citation

  • Richard Ashley & Kwok Ping Tsang & Randal Verbrugge, 2020. "A new look at historical monetary policy (and the great inflation) through the lens of a persistence-dependent policy rule," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 72(3), pages 672-691.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:oxecpp:v:72:y:2020:i:3:p:672-691.
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    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/oep/gpaa006
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    Cited by:

    1. Jean-Bernard Chatelain & Kirsten Ralf, 2020. "How macroeconomists lost control of stabilization policy: towards dark ages," The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 27(6), pages 938-982, November.
    2. Verbrugge, Randal & Zaman, Saeed, 2023. "The hard road to a soft landing: Evidence from a (modestly) nonlinear structural model," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 123(C).
    3. Randal Verbrugge & Saeed Zaman, 2024. "Post‐COVID inflation dynamics: Higher for longer," Journal of Forecasting, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 43(4), pages 871-893, July.
    4. Randal J. Verbrugge, 2021. "Is It Time to Reassess the Focal Role of Core PCE Inflation?," Working Papers 21-10, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • E52 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Monetary Policy
    • C22 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Time-Series Models; Dynamic Quantile Regressions; Dynamic Treatment Effect Models; Diffusion Processes
    • C32 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Multiple or Simultaneous Equation Models; Multiple Variables - - - Time-Series Models; Dynamic Quantile Regressions; Dynamic Treatment Effect Models; Diffusion Processes; State Space Models

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