IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nuf/econwp/0316.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Wage and Price Phillips Curves An empirical analysis of destabilizing wage-price spirals

Author

Listed:
  • Peter Flaschel

    (University of Bielefeld, Germany)

  • Hans-Martin Krolzig

    (Department of Economics, and Nuffield College, Oxford University)

Abstract

In this paper we introduce a small Keynesian model of economic growth which is centered around two advanced types of Phillips curves, one for money wages and one for prices, both being augmented by perfect myopic foresight and supplemented by a measure of the medium-term inflationary climate updated in an adaptive fashion. The model contains two potentially destabilizing feedback chains, the so-called Mundell and Rose-effects. We estimate parsimonious and congruent Phillips curves for money wages and prices in the US over the past five decades. Using the parameters of the empirical Phillips curves, we show that the growth path of the private sector of the model economy is likely to be surrounded by centrifugal forces. Convergence to this growth path can be generated in two ways: a Blanchard-Katz-type error-correction mechanism in the money-wage Phillips curve or a modified Taylor rule that is augmented by a term, which transmits increases in the wage share (real unit labor costs) to increases in the nominal rate of interest. Thus the model is characterized by local instability of the wage-price spiral, which however can be tamed by appropriate wage or monetary policies. Our empirical analysis finds the error-correction mechanism being ineffective in both Phillips curves suggesting that the stability of the post-war US macroeconomy originates from the stabilizing role of monetary policy.

Suggested Citation

  • Peter Flaschel & Hans-Martin Krolzig, 2003. "Wage and Price Phillips Curves An empirical analysis of destabilizing wage-price spirals," Economics Papers 2003-W16, Economics Group, Nuffield College, University of Oxford.
    • Handle: RePEc:nuf:econwp:0316
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nuff.ox.ac.uk/economics/papers/2003/W16/PFHMK3a.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. William Poole, 1999. "Monetary policy rules?," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, issue Mar, pages 3-12.
    2. Taylor, John B., 1999. "Staggered price and wage setting in macroeconomics," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & M. Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 15, pages 1009-1050, Elsevier.
    3. Taylor, John B, 1980. "Aggregate Dynamics and Staggered Contracts," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 88(1), pages 1-23, February.
    4. Laurence Ball & Robert Moffitt, 2001. "Productivity Growth and the Phillips Curve," NBER Working Papers 8421, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Richard Clarida & Jordi Galí & Mark Gertler, 2000. "Monetary Policy Rules and Macroeconomic Stability: Evidence and Some Theory," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 115(1), pages 147-180.
    6. Robert J. Gordon, 1997. "The Time-Varying NAIRU and Its Implications for Economic Policy," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 11(1), pages 11-32, Winter.
    7. Chiarella,Carl & Flaschel,Peter, 2011. "The Dynamics of Keynesian Monetary Growth," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521180184, January.
    8. Mankiw, N Gregory, 2001. "The Inexorable and Mysterious Tradeoff between Inflation and Unemployment," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 111(471), pages 45-61, May.
    9. PLASMANS, Joseph & MEERSMAN, Hilde & VAN POECK, André & MERLEVEDE, Bruno, 2002. "The unemployment benefit system and wage flexibility in EMU: time-varying evidence in five countries," Working Papers 2002020, University of Antwerp, Faculty of Business and Economics.
    10. 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.
    11. PLASMANS, Joseph & MEERSMAN, Hilde & VAN POECK, André & MERLEVEDE, Bruno, 1999. "Generosity of the unemployment benefit systern and wage flexibility in EMU: Time- varying evidence in five countries," Working Papers 1999043, University of Antwerp, Faculty of Business and Economics.
    12. Mark Gertler & Jordi Gali & Richard Clarida, 1999. "The Science of Monetary Policy: A New Keynesian Perspective," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 37(4), pages 1661-1707, December.
    13. Gali, Jordi & Gertler, Mark & Lopez-Salido, J. David, 2001. "European inflation dynamics," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 45(7), pages 1237-1270.
    14. Laxton, Douglas & Rose, David & Tambakis, Demosthenes, 1999. "The U.S. Phillips curve: The case for asymmetry," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 23(9-10), pages 1459-1485, September.
    15. Victoria C. Hoogenveen & Simon K. Kuipers, 2000. "The long-run effects of low inflation rates," Banca Nazionale del Lavoro Quarterly Review, Banca Nazionale del Lavoro, vol. 53(214), pages 267-285.
    16. Hans-Martin Krolzig, 2001. "General--to--Specific Reductions of Vector Autoregressive Processes," Computing in Economics and Finance 2001 164, Society for Computational Economics.
    17. Flaschel, Peter & Gong, Gang & Semmler, Willi, 2001. "A Keynesian macroeconometric framework for the analysis of monetary policy rules," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 46(1), pages 101-136, September.
    18. Calvo, Guillermo A., 1983. "Staggered prices in a utility-maximizing framework," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 12(3), pages 383-398, September.
    19. Robert J. Gordon, 1998. "Foundations of the Goldilocks Economy: Supply Shocks and the Time-Varying NAIRU," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 29(2), pages 297-346.
    20. H. Rose, 1967. "On the Non-Linear Theory of the Employment Cycle," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 34(2), pages 153-173.
    21. James Tobin, 1993. "Price Flexibility and Output Stability: An Old Keynesian View," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 7(1), pages 45-65, Winter.
    22. Lawrence F. Katz & Olivier Blanchard, 1999. "Wage Dynamics: Reconciling Theory and Evidence," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(2), pages 69-74, May.
    23. Ray C. Fair, 2000. "Testing the NAIRU Model for the United States," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 82(1), pages 64-71, February.
    24. David H. Romer, 2000. "Keynesian Macroeconomics without the LM Curve," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 14(2), pages 149-169, Spring.
    25. Christian Groth, 1993. "Some unfamiliar dynamics of a familiar macro model a note," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 58(3), pages 293-305, October.
    26. Victoria C. Hoogenveen & Simon K. Kuipers, 2000. "The long-run effects of low inflation rates," BNL Quarterly Review, Banca Nazionale del Lavoro, vol. 53(214), pages 267-285.
    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. Asada, Toichiro & Chen, Pu & Chiarella, Carl & Flaschel, Peter, 2006. "Keynesian dynamics and the wage-price spiral: A baseline disequilibrium model," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 28(1), pages 90-130, March.
    2. Chen, Pu & Hsiao, Chih-Ying, 2010. "Looking behind Granger causality," MPRA Paper 24859, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. C. Chiarella & P. Chen, 2004. "Keynesian Dynamics and the Wage-Price Spiral:Estimating a Baseline Disequilibrium Approach," Computing in Economics and Finance 2004 149, Society for Computational Economics.
    4. Peter Flaschel & Peter Skott, 2006. "Steindlian Models Of Growth And Stagnation," Metroeconomica, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 57(3), pages 303-338, July.
    5. Carl Chiarella & Peter Flaschel & Peiyuan Zhu, 2003. "The Structure of Keynesian Macrodynamics: A Framework for Future Research," Working Paper Series 129, Finance Discipline Group, UTS Business School, University of Technology, Sydney.
    6. Hans‐Martin Krolzig, 2003. "General‐to‐Specific Model Selection Procedures for Structural Vector Autoregressions," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 65(s1), pages 769-801, December.
    7. Toichiro Asada & Carl Chiarella & Peter Flaschel, 2003. "Keynes-Metzler-Goodwin Model Building: The Closed Economy," Working Paper Series 124, Finance Discipline Group, UTS Business School, University of Technology, Sydney.
    8. Pu Chen & Carl Chiarella & Peter Flaschel & Willi Semmler, 2006. "Keynesian Macrodynamics and the Phillips Curve. An Estimated Baseline Macromodel for the U.S. Economy," Working Paper Series 147, Finance Discipline Group, UTS Business School, University of Technology, Sydney.
    9. Toichiro Asada & Peter Flaschel & Peter Skott, 2006. "Prosperity and Stagnation in Capitalist Economies," Contributions to Economic Analysis, in: Quantitative and Empirical Analysis of Nonlinear Dynamic Macromodels, pages 415-450, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    10. Carl Chiarella & Peter Flaschel & Hing Hung, 2006. "Interacting Business Cycle Fluctuations: A Two-Country Model," The Singapore Economic Review (SER), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 51(03), pages 365-394.
    11. Chen, Pu, 2010. "A time series causal model," MPRA Paper 24841, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    12. Pu Chen & Chih-Ying Hsiao, 2010. "Causal Inference for Structural Equations: With an Application to Wage-Price Spiral," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 36(1), pages 17-36, June.
    13. T. Asada & P. Chen, 2004. "Keynesian Dynamics and the wage price spiral. A baseline disequilibrium approach," Computing in Economics and Finance 2004 262, Society for Computational Economics.
    14. Pu Chen & Peter Flaschel, 2005. "Keynesian Dynamics and the Wage–Price Spiral: Identifying Downward Rigidities," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 25(1), pages 115-142, February.

    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. Marika Karanassou & Hector Sala & Dennis J. Snower, 2010. "Phillips Curves And Unemployment Dynamics: A Critique And A Holistic Perspective," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(1), pages 1-51, February.
    2. Proaño, Christian R., 2012. "Gradual wage-price adjustments, labor market frictions and monetary policy rules," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 82(1), pages 220-235.
    3. Pu Chen & Carl Chiarella & Peter Flaschel & Willi Semmler, 2006. "Keynesian Macrodynamics and the Phillips Curve. An Estimated Baseline Macromodel for the U.S. Economy," Working Paper Series 147, Finance Discipline Group, UTS Business School, University of Technology, Sydney.
    4. Karanassou, Marika & Sala, Hector & Snower, Dennis J., 2005. "A reappraisal of the inflation-unemployment tradeoff," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 21(1), pages 1-32, March.
    5. Mash, Richard, 2002. "New Keynesian Microfoundations Revisited: A Generalised Calvo-Taylor Model and the Desirability of Inflation vs. Price Level Targeting," Royal Economic Society Annual Conference 2002 138, Royal Economic Society.
    6. Mr. Michael Kumhof & Mr. Luis Felipe Céspedes & Mr. Eric Parrado, 2003. "Pricing Policies and Inflation Inertia," IMF Working Papers 2003/087, International Monetary Fund.
    7. Richard Mash, 2005. "Simple Pricing Rules, the Phillips Curve and the Microfoundations of Inflation Persistence," Computing in Economics and Finance 2005 427, Society for Computational Economics.
    8. Bardsen, Gunnar & Eitrheim, Oyvind & Jansen, Eilev S. & Nymoen, Ragnar, 2005. "The Econometrics of Macroeconomic Modelling," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199246502.
    9. Leith, Campbell & Malley, Jim, 2005. "Estimated general equilibrium models for the evaluation of monetary policy in the US and Europe," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 49(8), pages 2137-2159, November.
    10. Michael Kumhof & Douglas Laxton, 2005. "A Rational Expectations Model of Optimal Inflation Inertia," Computing in Economics and Finance 2005 429, Society for Computational Economics.
    11. Richard Mash, 2004. "Optimising microfoundations for observed inflation persistence," Money Macro and Finance (MMF) Research Group Conference 2003 60, Money Macro and Finance Research Group.
    12. Peter Flaschel & Göran Kauermann & Willi Semmler, 2007. "Testing Wage And Price Phillips Curves For The United States," Metroeconomica, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 58(4), pages 550-581, November.
    13. Ekkehard Ernst & Peter Flaschel & Christian Proano & Willi Semmler, 2006. "Disequilibrium Macroeconomic Dynamics, Income Distribution and Wage-Price Phillips Curves," IMK Working Paper 04-2006, IMK at the Hans Boeckler Foundation, Macroeconomic Policy Institute.
    14. 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.
    15. Richard Mash, 2004. "Optimising Microfoundations for Inflation Persistence," Economics Series Working Papers 183, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    16. Carl Chiarella & Peter Flaschel & Peiyuan Zhu, 2003. "The Structure of Keynesian Macrodynamics: A Framework for Future Research," Working Paper Series 129, Finance Discipline Group, UTS Business School, University of Technology, Sydney.
    17. Calvo, Guillermo & Celasun, Oya & Kumhof, Michael, 2007. "Inflation inertia and credible disinflation," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(1), pages 48-68, September.
    18. 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.
    19. Michael Kumhof, 2004. "Inflation Inertia- THe Role of Multiple, Interacting Pricing Rigidities," Working Papers 182004, Hong Kong Institute for Monetary Research.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Phillips curves; Mundell effect; Rose effect; Monetary policy; Taylor Rule; Inflation; Unemployment; Instability;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E24 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution; Aggregate Human Capital; Aggregate Labor Productivity
    • E31 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Price Level; Inflation; Deflation
    • E32 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Business Fluctuations; Cycles
    • J30 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - General

    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:nuf:econwp:0316. 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: Maxine Collett (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.nuffield.ox.ac.uk/economics/ .

    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.