scholarly journals Inflation? It’s Import Prices and the Labor Share!

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-39
Author(s):  
Lance Taylor ◽  
Nelson H. Barbosa-Filho

Recognizing that inflation of the value of output and its costs of production must be equal, we focus on a cost-based macroeconomic structuralist approach in contrast to micro-oriented monetarist analysis. For decades the import and profit shares of cost have risen, while the wage share has declined to around 50% with money wage increases lagging the sum of growth rates of prices and productivity. Conflicting claims to income are the underlying source of inflationary pressure. Inflation affects income (labor’s spending power) and wealth. Monetarist theory around 1900 concentrated on the latter (Bryan and the “Cross of Gold)” leading to the standard Laffer curve. It was replaced by the Friedman-Phelps model which has incorrect dynamics (labor payments do not fall during an expansion – they go up). Samuelson and Solow introduced a version of the Phillips curve that violates macroeconomic accounting. Rational expectations replaced Friedman but was immediately falsified by output drops after the Volcker shock treatment around 1980. There followed a complicated transition from rational expectations to inflation targeting, anchored by economists’ misunderstanding of the physical meaning of ergodicity and ontological blindness. It did not help that the real balance effect is irrelevant because money makes up a small part of wealth. Rather than issuing veiled threats of disaster if its policy advice is not followed, the Fed now announces inflation targets which it cannot meet. Contemporary structuralist theory suggests that conflicting income claims set the inflation rate. Firms can mark up costs but workers have latent bargaining power over the labor share that they can exercise. Import costs and policy repercussions complicate the picture, but a simple vector error correction model and visual analysis suggest that money wages would have to grow one percentage point faster than prices plus productivity for several years if the Fed is to meet a three percent inflation target. The results pose a Biden policy trilemma: (i) the only path toward a more egalitarian size distribution of income is through a rising labor share (money wage growth exceeds price plus productivity growth), (ii) which would provoke faster inflation with feedback to rising interest rates, and (iii) the resulting asset price deflation likely facing political resistance from Wall Street and affluent households.

2014 ◽  
pp. 107-121 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Andryushin

The paper analyzes monetary policy of the Bank of Russia from 2008 to 2014. It presents the dynamics of macroeconomic indicators testifying to inability of the Bank of Russia to transit to inflation targeting regime. It is shown that the presence of short-term interest rates in the top borders of the percentage corridor does not allow to consider the key rate as a basic tool of monetary policy. The article justifies that stability of domestic prices is impossible with-out exchange rate stability. It is proved that to decrease excessive volatility on national consumer and financial markets it is reasonable to apply a policy of managing financial account, actively using for this purpose direct and indirect control tools for the cross-border flows of the private and public capital.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jose Maria Barrero

This paper studies how biases in managerial beliefs affect managerial decisions, firm performance, and the macroeconomy. Using a new survey of US managers I establish three facts. (1) Managers are not over-optimistic: sales growth forecasts on average do not exceed realizations. (2) Managers are overprecise (overconfident): they underestimate future sales growth volatility. (3) Managers overextrapolate: their forecasts are too optimistic after positive shocks and too pessimistic after negative shocks. To quantify the implications of these facts, I estimate a dynamic general equilibrium model in which managers of heterogeneous firms use a subjective beliefs process to make forward-looking hiring decisions. Overprecision and overextrapolation lead managers to overreact to firm-level shocks and overspend on adjustment costs, destroying 2.1 percent of the typical firm’s value. Pervasive overreaction leads to excess volatility and reallocation, lowering consumer welfare by 0.5 to 2.3 percent relative to the rational expectations equilibrium. These findings suggest overreaction may amplify asset-price and business cycle fluctuations.


2010 ◽  
Vol 01 (01) ◽  
pp. 59-80
Author(s):  
PIERRE L. SIKLOS

Until the end of 2005 there were few outward signs that the inflation targeting (IT) monetary policy strategy was deemed fragile or that the likelihood of abandoning it was high. In light of the severe economic downturn and the global financial crisis that has afflicted most economies around the world since at least 2008, it is worth reconsidering the question of the fragility of the inflation targeting regime. This paper reprises the approach followed in Siklos (2008) but adds important new twists. For example, the present study asks whether the continued survival of IT is due to the fact that some of the central banks in question did take account of changes in financial stress. The answer is no. Indeed, many central banks are seen as enablers of rapid asset price increases. The lesson, however, is not that inflation targeting needs to be repaired. Instead, refinements should be considered to the existing inflation targeting strategy which has evolved considerably since it was first introduced in New Zealand 20 years ago. Most notably, there should be continued emphasis on inflation as the primary nominal anchor of monetary policy, especially in emerging market economies (EME), even if additional duties are assigned to central banks in response to recent events.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Suriani Suriani ◽  
M. Shabri Abd. Majid ◽  
Raja Masbar ◽  
Nazaruddin A. Wahid ◽  
Abdul Ghafar Ismail

Purpose The purpose of this study is to empirically analyze the role of sukuk in the monetary policy transmission mechanism through the asset price and exchange rate channels in the Indonesian economy. Design/methodology/approach Using the monthly data from January 2003 to November 2017, this study uses a multivariate vector error correction model causality framework. To examine the role of sukuk in the monetary policy transmission mechanism through the asset price channel, this study uses the variables of consumption, inflation, interest rates, economic growth and the composite stock price index. Meanwhile, to examine the role of sukuk in the monetary policy transmission mechanism through the exchange rate channel, this study used variables of inflation, interest rates, economic growth, foreign investment and exchange rate. Findings This study documented that sukuk has no causal relationship with inflation through asset price and exchange rate channels. Nevertheless, sukuk has a bidirectional causal relationship with economic growth through asset price and exchange rate channels. Sukuk is also documented to have a causal relationship with monetary policy variables of interest rate and stock prices through asset price and exchange rate channels. Finally, a unidirectional causality is recorded running from the exchange rate to sukuk in the exchange rate channel. Research limitations/implications The finding of independence of the sukuk market from interest rates provides evidence that the trading of the sukuk in Indonesia has been in harmony with the Islamic tenets. Practical implications The relevant Indonesian authorities need to enhance both domestic and global sukuk markets as part of efforts to promote the sustainability of Islamic capital market development in Indonesia. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is among the first attempts to empirically investigate the role of sukuk in monetary policy transmission through asset price and exchange rate channels in the context of the Indonesian economy.


2018 ◽  
Vol 56 (4) ◽  
pp. 1447-1491 ◽  
Author(s):  
Olivier Coibion ◽  
Yuriy Gorodnichenko ◽  
Rupal Kamdar

This paper argues for a careful (re)consideration of the expectations formation process and a more systematic inclusion of real-time expectations through survey data in macroeconomic analyses. While the rational expectations revolution has allowed for great leaps in macroeconomic modeling, the surveyed empirical microevidence appears increasingly at odds with the full-information rational expectation assumption. We explore models of expectation formation that can potentially explain why and how survey data deviate from full-information rational expectations. Using the New Keynesian Phillips curve as an extensive case study, we demonstrate how incorporating survey data on inflation expectations can address a number of otherwise puzzling shortcomings that arise under the assumption of full-information rational expectations. (JEL D04, E24, E27, E31, E37)


2011 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Irineu E de Carvalho Filho

Twenty-eight months after the onset of the global financial crisis of August 2008, the evidence on post-crisis GDP growth emerging from a sample of 51 advanced and emerging countries is flattering for inflation targeting countries relative to their peers. The positive effect of IT is not explained away by plausible pre-crisis determinants of post-crisis performance, such as growth in private credit, ratios of short-term debt to GDP, reserves to short-term debt and reserves to GDP, capital account restrictions, total capital inflows, trade openness, current account balance and exchange rate flexibility, or post-crisis drivers such as the growth performance of trading partners and changes in terms of trade. We find that inflation targeting countries lowered nominal and real interest rates more sharply than other countries; were less likely to face deflation scares; and had sharp real depreciations without a relative deterioration in their risk assessment by markets. While the task of establishing causal relationships from cross-sectional macroeconomics series is daunting, our reading of this evidence is consistent with the resilience of IT countries being related to their ability to loosen their monetary policy when most needed, thereby avoiding deflation scares and the zero lower bound on interest rates.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 90
Author(s):  
Saliu Mojeed Olanrewaju ◽  
Ogunleye Edward Oladipo

This study examines the relationship between Asset prices (Stock and Real estate prices) and Macroeconomic variables in four selected African countries. The study employs the Westerlund Error Correction Based Panel Cointegration test and Eight-variable Structural Vector Autoregressive model to examine the relationship between asset prices and macroeconomic variables. Findings from the study confirm that no long-run relationship exists between both Asset prices and macroeconomic variables. The study equally reveals that portfolio diversification benefits of both stock and real estate markets are more pronounced in the period of a boom than the recession period in Africa. The results also show that GDP growth rate shock exerts a significant impact on both asset prices during expansion and recession periods. The study reveals that foreign interest rates and World oil price shocks are better predictors of both stock and real estate prices during the crisis period than in the expansion period.


2016 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 123
Author(s):  
Ergys Misha

The Taylor’s Rule Central Banks is applying widely today from Central Banks for design the monetary policy and for determination of interest rates. The purpose of this paper is to assess monetary policy rule in Albania, in view of an inflation targeting regime. In the first version of the Model, the Taylor’s Rule assumes that base interest rate of the monetary policy varies depending on the change of (1) the inflation rate and (2) economic growth (Output Gap).Through this paper it is proposed changing the objective of the Bank of Albania by adding a new objective, that of "financial stability", along with the “price stability”. This means that it is necessary to reassess the Taylor’s Rule by modifying it with incorporation of indicators of financial stability. In the case of Albania, we consider that there is no regular market of financial assets in the absence of the Stock Exchange. For this reason, we will rely on the credit developmet - as a way to measure the financial cycle in the economy. In this case, the base rate of monetary policy will be changed throught: (1) Targeting Inflation Rate, (2) Nominal Targeting of Economic Growth, and (3) Targeting the Gap of the Ratio Credit/GDP (mitigating the boom cycle, if the gap is positive, and the contractiocycle if the gap is negative).The research data show that, it is necessary that the Bank of Albania should also include in its objective maintaining the financial stability. In this way, the contribution expected from the inclusion of credit gap indicators in Taylor’s Rule, will be higher and sustainable in time.


Author(s):  
K. Lawle ◽  
A. Moscardini ◽  
I. Pavlenko ◽  
T. Vlasova

This paper develops a detailed case study of the Phillips Curve as it has evolved since Phillips classic work of 1958. An explicit narrative in the paper involves the evolution of the argument using economics and systems thinking, to develop underlying data generating models. These are shown to underpin the inverse relationship between inflation and unemployment in economics. The paper considers the political exigencies relating to the Great inflation of the 1970s and the Great Recession post 2008 in terms of interpretations of the Philips curve. The paper hypothesises that economic ideas have meaningful significance within the context of historical eras with concomitant political imperatives whence such notions become somnolent once crises have abated. This This historical narrative is implicit in the latest research reflections on Philips curves. A particularly useful finding is the relevance of systems thinking and systems dynamics to the interpretation of issues relating to aggregation problems in macroeconomics involving inflation and unemployment causal relationships. The paper concludes that seemingly moribund the Philips curve is alive may have been hibernating. Identifying the Phillips curve requires a wide range of variability of non-aggregative data streams. This allows the negative slope of the curve to be revealed, else the Philips curve slope is pushed towards the vertical plane. Endogenous central banking and inflation targeting intensifies this effect which is evident from a systems thinking /dynamics perspective.


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