IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/jmoncb/v42y2010i1p151-170.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Can We Explain Inflation Persistence in a Way that Is Consistent with the Microevidence on Nominal Rigidity?

Author

Listed:
  • HUW DIXON
  • ENGIN KARA

Abstract

This paper adopts the impulse‐response methodology to understand inflation persistence. It has often been argued that existing models of pricing fail to explain the persistence that we observe. We adopt a common general framework that allows for an explicit modeling of the distribution of contract lengths and for different types of price setting. We also evaluate how far the theories are consistent with recent evidence on price and wage rigidity. We find that allowing for a distribution of durations can take us a long way to solving the puzzle of inflation persistence, but not all the way yet.

Suggested Citation

  • Huw Dixon & Engin Kara, 2010. "Can We Explain Inflation Persistence in a Way that Is Consistent with the Microevidence on Nominal Rigidity?," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 42(1), pages 151-170, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:jmoncb:v:42:y:2010:i:1:p:151-170
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1538-4616.2009.00282.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1538-4616.2009.00282.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1538-4616.2009.00282.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Michael Dotsey & Robert G. King & Alexander L. Wolman, 1999. "State-Dependent Pricing and the General Equilibrium Dynamics of Money and Output," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 114(2), pages 655-690.
    2. Jeff Fuhrer & George Moore, 1995. "Inflation Persistence," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 110(1), pages 127-159.
    3. 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.
    4. N. Gregory Mankiw & Ricardo Reis, 2002. "Sticky Information versus Sticky Prices: A Proposal to Replace the New Keynesian Phillips Curve," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 117(4), pages 1295-1328.
    5. Andrew T. Levin & Jeremy M. Piger, 2003. "Is inflation persistence intrinsic in industrial economies?," Working Papers 2002-023, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
    6. Peter N. Ireland, 2007. "Changes in the Federal Reserve's Inflation Target: Causes and Consequences," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 39(8), pages 1851-1882, December.
    7. Michael Dotsey & Robert G. King, 2006. "Pricing, Production, and Persistence," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 4(5), pages 893-928, September.
    8. Taylor, John B., 2000. "Low inflation, pass-through, and the pricing power of firms," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 44(7), pages 1389-1408, June.
    9. Nicoletta Batini & Edward Nelson, 2001. "The Lag from Monetary Policy Actions to Inflation: Friedman Revisited," International Finance, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 4(3), pages 381-400.
    10. de Walque, G. & Smets, F. & Wouters, R., 2005. "Price setting in General Equilibrium: Alternative Specifications," Computing in Economics and Finance 2005 370, Society for Computational Economics.
    11. Engin Kara & Huw Dixon, 2005. "Persistence and Nominal Inertia in a Generalized Taylor Economy: How Longer Contracts Dominate Shorter Contracts," Computing in Economics and Finance 2005 87, Society for Computational Economics.
    12. Galí, Jordi & Gertler, Mark, 1999. "Inflation Dynamics: A Structural Economic Analysis," CEPR Discussion Papers 2246, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    13. David Altig & Lawrence Christiano & Martin Eichenbaum & Jesper Linde, 2011. "Firm-Specific Capital, Nominal Rigidities and the Business Cycle," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 14(2), pages 225-247, April.
    14. Rochelle M. Edge, 2002. "The Equivalence of Wage and Price Staggering in Monetary Business Cycle Models," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 5(3), pages 559-585, July.
    15. Todd E. Clark, 2006. "Disaggregate evidence on the persistence of consumer price inflation," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 21(5), pages 563-587.
    16. Dixon, Huw & Kara, Engin, 2006. "How to Compare Taylor and Calvo Contracts: A Comment on Michael Kiley," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 38(4), pages 1119-1126, June.
    17. Kevin X.D. Huang & Zheng Liu & Louis Phaneuf, 2004. "Why Does the Cyclical Behavior of Real Wages Change Over Time?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(4), pages 836-856, September.
    18. Lawrence J. Christiano & Martin Eichenbaum & Charles L. Evans, 2005. "Nominal Rigidities and the Dynamic Effects of a Shock to Monetary Policy," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 113(1), pages 1-45, February.
    19. Roberts John M., 2005. "How Well Does the New Keynesian Sticky-Price Model Fit the Data?," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 5(1), pages 1-39, September.
    20. Calvo, Guillermo A., 1983. "Staggered prices in a utility-maximizing framework," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 12(3), pages 383-398, September.
    21. Mark Bils & Peter J. Klenow, 2004. "Some Evidence on the Importance of Sticky Prices," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 112(5), pages 947-985, October.
    22. Kimball, Miles S, 1995. "The Quantitative Analytics of the Basic Neomonetarist Model," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 27(4), pages 1241-1277, November.
    23. Coenen, Gunter & Levin, Andrew T. & Christoffel, Kai, 2007. "Identifying the influences of nominal and real rigidities in aggregate price-setting behavior," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(8), pages 2439-2466, November.
    24. David Altig & Lawrence Christiano & Martin Eichenbaum & Jesper Linde, 2011. "Firm-Specific Capital, Nominal Rigidities and the Business Cycle," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 14(2), pages 225-247, April.
    25. Argia M. Sbordone & Timothy Cogley, 2004. "A Search for a Structural Phillips Curve," Computing in Economics and Finance 2004 291, Society for Computational Economics.
    26. Ricardo Reis, 2006. "Inattentive Producers," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 73(3), pages 793-821.
    27. Martin S. Eichenbaum & Jonas D. M. Fisher, 2003. "Evaluating the Calvo model of sticky prices," Working Paper Series WP-03-23, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
    28. V. V. Chari & Patrick J. Kehoe & Ellen R. McGrattan, 2000. "Sticky Price Models of the Business Cycle: Can the Contract Multiplier Solve the Persistence Problem?," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 68(5), pages 1151-1180, September.
    29. Fischer, Stanley, 1977. "Long-Term Contracts, Rational Expectations, and the Optimal Money Supply Rule," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 85(1), pages 191-205, February.
    30. Timothy Cogley & Argia M. Sbordone, 2008. "Trend Inflation, Indexation, and Inflation Persistence in the New Keynesian Phillips Curve," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(5), pages 2101-2126, December.
    31. Emmanuel Dhyne & Luis J. Álvarez & Hervé Le Bihan & Giovanni Veronese & Daniel Dias & Johannes Hoffmann & Nicole Jonker & Patrick Lünnemann & Fabio Rumler & Jouko Vilmunen, 2005. "Price setting in the euro area: Some stylized facts from Individual Consumer Price Data," Working Paper Research 74, National Bank of Belgium.
    32. Argia M. Sbordone & Timothy Cogley, 2004. "A Search for a Structural Phillips Curve," Computing in Economics and Finance 2004 291, Society for Computational Economics.
    33. Fuhrer, Jeffrey C., 2010. "Inflation Persistence," Handbook of Monetary Economics, in: Benjamin M. Friedman & Michael Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Monetary Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 9, pages 423-486, Elsevier.
    34. Pivetta, Frederic & Reis, Ricardo, 2007. "The persistence of inflation in the United States," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 31(4), pages 1326-1358, April.
    35. Nicoletta Batini, 2006. "Euro area inflation persistence," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 31(4), pages 977-1002, November.
    36. Nelson, E., 1998. "Sluggish inflation and optimizing models of the business cycle," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(2), pages 303-322, July.
    37. Gali, Jordi & Gertler, Mark, 1999. "Inflation dynamics: A structural econometric analysis," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(2), pages 195-222, October.
    38. Guido Ascari, 2003. "Price/Wage Staggering and Persistence: A Unifying Framework," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 17(4), pages 511-540, September.
    39. Frank Smets & Raf Wouters, 2003. "An Estimated Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium Model of the Euro Area," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 1(5), pages 1123-1175, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Dixon, Huw & Kara, Engin, 2006. "Understanding inflation persistence: a comparison of different models," Working Paper Series 672, European Central Bank.
    2. 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.
    3. Gbaguidi, David, 2012. "La courbe de Phillips : temps d’arbitrage et/ou arbitrage de temps," L'Actualité Economique, Société Canadienne de Science Economique, vol. 88(1), pages 87-119, mars.
    4. Coenen, Gunter & Levin, Andrew T. & Christoffel, Kai, 2007. "Identifying the influences of nominal and real rigidities in aggregate price-setting behavior," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(8), pages 2439-2466, November.
    5. Taylor, J.B., 2016. "The Staying Power of Staggered Wage and Price Setting Models in Macroeconomics," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & Harald Uhlig (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 2009-2042, Elsevier.
    6. Gbaguidi DAVID, 2011. "Expectations Impact On The Effectiveness Of The Inflation-Real Activity Trade-Off," Theoretical and Practical Research in the Economic Fields, ASERS Publishing, vol. 2(2), pages 141-181.
    7. Gbaguidi, David Sedo, 2011. "Regime Switching in a New Keynesian Phillips Curve with Non-zero Steady-state Inflation Rate," MPRA Paper 35481, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Merkl, Christian & Snower, Dennis, 2009. "Monetary Persistence, Imperfect Competition, And Staggering Complementarities," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 13(1), pages 81-106, February.
    9. Gregory de Walque & Frank Smets & Rafael Wouters, 2006. "Firm-Specific Production Factors in a DSGE Model with Taylor Price Setting," International Journal of Central Banking, International Journal of Central Banking, vol. 2(3), September.
    10. Kevin Lansing, 2009. "Time Varying U.S. Inflation Dynamics and the New Keynesian Phillips Curve," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 12(2), pages 304-326, April.
    11. Andrew T. Levin & Alexei Onatski & John Williams & Noah M. Williams, 2006. "Monetary Policy under Uncertainty in Micro-Founded Macroeconometric Models," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 2005, Volume 20, pages 229-312, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. David Altig & Lawrence Christiano & Martin Eichenbaum & Jesper Linde, 2011. "Firm-Specific Capital, Nominal Rigidities and the Business Cycle," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 14(2), pages 225-247, April.
    13. Timothy Cogley & Argia M. Sbordone, 2006. "Trend inflation and inflation persistence in the New Keynesian Phillips curve," Staff Reports 270, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    14. Michel Juillard & Ondrej Kamenik & Michael Kumhof & Douglas Laxton, 2006. "Measures of Potential Output from an Estimated DSGE Model of the United States," Working Papers 2006/11, Czech National Bank.
    15. Alvarez González, Luis Julián, 2008. "What Do Micro Price Data Tell Us on the Validity of the New Keynesian Phillips Curve?," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 2, pages 1-36.
    16. Juillard, Michael & Kamenik, Ondra & Kumhof, Michael & Laxton, Douglas, 2008. "Optimal price setting and inflation inertia in a rational expectations model," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 32(8), pages 2584-2621, August.
    17. Mohamed Safouane Ben Aïssa & Olivier Musy, 2011. "The Dynamic Properties Of Alternative Assumptions On Price Adjustment In New Keynesian Models," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 63(4), pages 353-384, October.
    18. 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.
    19. Jean‐Philippe Laforte, 2007. "Pricing Models: A Bayesian DSGE Approach for the U.S. Economy," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 39(s1), pages 127-154, February.
    20. Jean-Philippe Laforte, 2007. "Pricing Models: A Bayesian DSGE Approach for the U.S. Economy," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 39(s1), pages 127-154, February.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • E17 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - General Aggregative Models - - - Forecasting and Simulation: Models and Applications
    • E3 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles

    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:wly:jmoncb:v:42:y:2010:i:1:p:151-170. 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0022-2879 .

    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.