Nothing Special   »   [go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/koc/wpaper/1615.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

What Helps Forecast U.S. Inflation?—Mind the Gap!

Author

Listed:
  • Ayse Kabukcuoglu

    (Koc University)

  • Enrique Martínez-García

    (Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas and SMU)

Abstract
The Phillips curve, which posits a relationship between inflation and domestic economic activity, introduces a crucial trade-off between real and nominal objectives for the central bank. Atkeson and Ohanian (2001), among others, present evidence that forecasts of U.S. inflation from Phillips curve-based models tend to underperform relative to naïve forecasts. We propose that globalization can be an important factor in explaining the poor performance of forecasts under a closed-economy Phillips curve. To illustrate that, we empirically evaluate the performance of open-economy Phillips curve-based forecasts constructed with global variables, such as G7 credit growth, G7 money supply growth, terms of trade, and the real effective exchange rate. These global variables perform significantly better than domestic variables, and serve as proxies for poorly-measured indicators of global slack. Moreover, we show that forecasts using simulated data from a workhorse open-economy New Keynesian model support our empirical findings on the open economy Phillips curve and also suggest that better monetary policy and aspects of the Great Moderation have improved the forecast accuracy of open-economy models.

Suggested Citation

  • Ayse Kabukcuoglu & Enrique Martínez-García, 2016. "What Helps Forecast U.S. Inflation?—Mind the Gap!," Koç University-TUSIAD Economic Research Forum Working Papers 1615, Koc University-TUSIAD Economic Research Forum.
    • Handle: RePEc:koc:wpaper:1615
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://eaf.ku.edu.tr/sites/eaf.ku.edu.tr/files/erf_wp_1615.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. John M. Roberts, 2006. "Monetary Policy and Inflation Dynamics," International Journal of Central Banking, International Journal of Central Banking, vol. 2(3), September.
    2. Galí, Jordi & Gertler, Mark (ed.), 2010. "International Dimensions of Monetary Policy," National Bureau of Economic Research Books, University of Chicago Press, number 9780226278865.
    3. Backus, David K & Kehoe, Patrick J & Kydland, Finn E, 1994. "Dynamics of the Trade Balance and the Terms of Trade: The J-Curve?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(1), pages 84-103, March.
    4. 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.
    5. James H. Stock & Mark W. Watson, 2008. "Phillips curve inflation forecasts," Conference Series ; [Proceedings], Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.
    6. James E. Anderson & Eric van Wincoop, 2004. "Trade Costs," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 42(3), pages 691-751, September.
    7. Canova, Fabio, 2007. "G-7 Inflation Forecasts: Random Walk, Phillips Curve Or What Else?," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 11(1), pages 1-30, February.
    8. John H. Cochrane, 2011. "Determinacy and Identification with Taylor Rules," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 119(3), pages 565-615.
    9. Gilbert Cette, 1990. "Durée d'utilisation des équipements : l'inversion d'une tendance longue," Économie et Statistique, Programme National Persée, vol. 231(1), pages 33-47.
    10. Heathcote, Jonathan & Perri, Fabrizio, 2002. "Financial autarky and international business cycles," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(3), pages 601-627, April.
    11. West, Kenneth D, 1996. "Asymptotic Inference about Predictive Ability," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 64(5), pages 1067-1084, September.
    12. V. V Chari & Patrick J. Kehoe & Ellen R. McGrattan, 2002. "Can Sticky Price Models Generate Volatile and Persistent Real Exchange Rates?," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 69(3), pages 533-563.
    13. 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.
    14. Christiano, Lawrence J. & Eichenbaum, Martin & Evans, Charles L., 1997. "Sticky price and limited participation models of money: A comparison," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 41(6), pages 1201-1249, June.
    15. Olivier Coibion & Yuriy Gorodnichenko, 2011. "Monetary Policy, Trend Inflation, and the Great Moderation: An Alternative Interpretation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(1), pages 341-370, February.
    16. Todd Clark & Michael McCracken, 2005. "Evaluating Direct Multistep Forecasts," Econometric Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 24(4), pages 369-404.
    17. Diebold, Francis X & Mariano, Roberto S, 2002. "Comparing Predictive Accuracy," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 20(1), pages 134-144, January.
    18. Clarida, Richard & Gali, Jordi & Gertler, Mark, 2002. "A simple framework for international monetary policy analysis," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(5), pages 879-904, July.
    19. Olivier Blanchard & John Simon, 2001. "The Long and Large Decline in U.S. Output Volatility," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 32(1), pages 135-174.
    20. Michael Woodford, 2008. "How Important Is Money in the Conduct of Monetary Policy?," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 40(8), pages 1561-1598, December.
    21. Ben S. Bernanke & Ilian Mihov, 1998. "Measuring Monetary Policy," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 113(3), pages 869-902.
    22. Thomas J. Sargent & Paolo Surico, 2011. "Two Illustrations of the Quantity Theory of Money: Breakdowns and Revivals," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(1), pages 109-128, February.
    23. Milani, Fabio, 2012. "Has Globalization Transformed U.S. Macroeconomic Dynamics?," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 16(2), pages 204-229, April.
    24. Todd E. Clark & Michael W. McCracken, 2002. "Forecast-based model selection in the presence of structural breaks," Research Working Paper RWP 02-05, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City.
    25. Neiss, Katharine S. & Nelson, Edward, 2003. "The Real-Interest-Rate Gap As An Inflation Indicator," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 7(2), pages 239-262, April.
    26. Margaret M. McConnell & Gabriel Perez-Quiros, 2000. "Output fluctuations in the United States: what has changed since the early 1980s?," Proceedings, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, issue Mar.
    27. Antonello D'Agostino & Paolo Surico, 2009. "Does Global Liquidity Help to Forecast U.S. Inflation?," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 41(2-3), pages 479-489, March.
    28. Clark, Todd & McCracken, Michael, 2013. "Advances in Forecast Evaluation," Handbook of Economic Forecasting, in: G. Elliott & C. Granger & A. Timmermann (ed.), Handbook of Economic Forecasting, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 1107-1201, Elsevier.
    29. Claudio E. V. Borio & Andrew Filardo, 2007. "Globalisation and inflation: New cross-country evidence on the global determinants of domestic inflation," BIS Working Papers 227, Bank for International Settlements.
    30. J. B. Taylor & M. Woodford (ed.), 1999. "Handbook of Macroeconomics," Handbook of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 1, number 1.
    31. Petra Gerlach, 2011. "The global output gap: measurement issues and regional disparities," BIS Quarterly Review, Bank for International Settlements, June.
    32. Francesco Bianchi & Andrea Civelli, 2015. "Globalization and Inflation: Evidence from a Time Varying VAR," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 18(2), pages 406-433, April.
    33. Milani, Fabio, 2010. "Global slack and domestic inflation rates: A structural investigation for G-7 countries," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 32(4), pages 968-981, December.
    34. Laurence M. Ball, 2006. "Has Globalization Changed Inflation?," NBER Working Papers 12687, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    35. Charles T. Carlstrom & Timothy S. Fuerst & Matthias Paustian, 2009. "Inflation Persistence, Monetary Policy, and the Great Moderation," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 41(4), pages 767-786, June.
    36. Lucas Papademos, 2007. "The Effects of Globalization on Inflation, Liquidity and Monetary Policy," NBER Chapters, in: International Dimensions of Monetary Policy, pages 593-608, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    37. Calvo, Guillermo A., 1983. "Staggered prices in a utility-maximizing framework," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 12(3), pages 383-398, September.
    38. Sandra Eickmeier & Katharina Pijnenburg, 2013. "The Global Dimension of Inflation – Evidence from Factor-Augmented Phillips Curves," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 75(1), pages 103-122, February.
    39. David K. Backus & Patrick J. Kehoe & Finn E. Kydland, 1992. "Dynamics of the trade balance and the terms of trade: the J-curve revisited," Discussion Paper / Institute for Empirical Macroeconomics 65, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
    40. Frank Smets & Rafael Wouters, 2007. "Shocks and Frictions in US Business Cycles: A Bayesian DSGE Approach," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(3), pages 586-606, June.
    41. Campbell, John Y & Shiller, Robert J, 1987. "Cointegration and Tests of Present Value Models," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 95(5), pages 1062-1088, October.
    42. Clark, Todd E. & McCracken, Michael W., 2006. "The Predictive Content of the Output Gap for Inflation: Resolving In-Sample and Out-of-Sample Evidence," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 38(5), pages 1127-1148, August.
    43. Raffaella Giacomini & Barbara Rossi, 2010. "Forecast comparisons in unstable environments," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 25(4), pages 595-620.
    44. Martin Feldstein, 2013. "Panel discussion," NBER Chapters, in: Globalization in an Age of Crisis: Multilateral Economic Cooperation in the Twenty-First Century, pages 389-391, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    45. Fukuda, Shin-ichi, 1993. "International transmission of monetary and fiscal policy : A symmetric N-country analysis with union," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 17(4), pages 589-620, July.
    46. 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.
    47. Assaf Razin & Alon Binyamini, 2007. "Flattened Inflation-Output Tradeoff and Enhanced Anti-Inflation Policy: Outcome of Globalization?," NBER Working Papers 13280, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    48. James H. Stock & Mark W. Watson, 2007. "Why Has U.S. Inflation Become Harder to Forecast?," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 39(s1), pages 3-33, February.
    49. Glenn D. Rudebusch, 2006. "Monetary Policy Inertia: Fact or Fiction?," International Journal of Central Banking, International Journal of Central Banking, vol. 2(4), December.
    50. Atsushi Inoue & Barbara Rossi, 2011. "Identifying the Sources of Instabilities in Macroeconomic Fluctuations," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 93(4), pages 1186-1204, November.
    51. Rochelle M. Edge & Refet S. Gurkaynak, 2010. "How Useful Are Estimated DSGE Model Forecasts for Central Bankers?," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 41(2 (Fall)), pages 209-259.
    52. Nigel Pain & Isabell Koske & Marte Sollie, 2006. "Globalisation and Inflation in the OECD Economies," OECD Economics Department Working Papers 524, OECD Publishing.
    53. Taylor, John B., 1993. "Discretion versus policy rules in practice," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 195-214, December.
    54. Frederic S. Mishkin, 2007. "Globalization, macroeconomic performance, and monetary policy : a speech at the Domestic Prices in an Integrated World Economy Conference, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, Washington,," Speech 320, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    55. Andrew Atkeson & Lee E. Ohanian, 2001. "Are Phillips curves useful for forecasting inflation?," Quarterly Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, vol. 25(Win), pages 2-11.
    56. Jordi Galí & Mark J. Gertler, 2010. "International Dimensions of Monetary Policy," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number gert07-1.
    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. Duncan, Roberto & Martínez-García, Enrique, 2019. "New perspectives on forecasting inflation in emerging market economies: An empirical assessment," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 35(3), pages 1008-1031.
    2. Enrique Martínez-García, 2019. "Good Policies or Good Luck? New Insights on Globalization and the International Monetary Policy Transmission Mechanism," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 54(1), pages 419-454, June.
    3. Kabukçuoğlu, Ayşe & Martínez-García, Enrique, 2018. "Inflation as a global phenomenon—Some implications for inflation modeling and forecasting," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 46-73.
    4. Kamber, Güneş & Wong, Benjamin, 2020. "Global factors and trend inflation," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 122(C).
    5. Roberto Duncan & Enrique Martínez García, 2015. "Forecasting local inflation in Open Economies: What Can a NOEM Model Do?," Globalization Institute Working Papers 235, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, revised 21 Dec 2022.

    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. Dur, Ayşe & Martínez García, Enrique, 2020. "Mind the gap!—A monetarist view of the open-economy Phillips curve," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 117(C).
    2. Kabukçuoğlu, Ayşe & Martínez-García, Enrique, 2018. "Inflation as a global phenomenon—Some implications for inflation modeling and forecasting," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 46-73.
    3. Martínez-García Enrique, 2018. "Modeling time-variation over the business cycle (1960–2017): an international perspective," Studies in Nonlinear Dynamics & Econometrics, De Gruyter, vol. 22(5), pages 1-25, December.
    4. Enrique Martínez-García & Diego Vilán & Mark A. Wynne, 2012. "Bayesian Estimation of NOEM Models: Identification and Inference in Small Samples," Advances in Econometrics, in: DSGE Models in Macroeconomics: Estimation, Evaluation, and New Developments, pages 137-199, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    5. Ayse Kabukcuoglu & Enrique Martínez García & Mehmet A. Soytas, 2017. "Exploring the Nexus Between Inflation and Globalization Under Inflation Targeting Through the Lens of New Zealand’s Experience," Globalization Institute Working Papers 308, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.
    6. McKnight, Stephen & Mihailov, Alexander & Rumler, Fabio, 2020. "Inflation forecasting using the New Keynesian Phillips Curve with a time-varying trend," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 383-393.
    7. Berger, Wolfram, 2008. "Monetary policy rules and the exchange rate," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 30(3), pages 1064-1084, September.
    8. Pym Manopimoke, 2015. "Globalization and International Inflation Dynamics: The Role of the Global Output Gap," PIER Discussion Papers 8, Puey Ungphakorn Institute for Economic Research.
    9. Pym Manopimoke, 2015. "Globalization and International Inflation Dynamics: The Role of the Global Output Gap," PIER Discussion Papers 8., Puey Ungphakorn Institute for Economic Research, revised Nov 2015.
    10. Enrique Martínez García & Mark A. Wynne, 2014. "Technical note on \"assessing Bayesian model comparison in small samples\"," Globalization Institute Working Papers 190, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.
    11. Johanna Posch & Fabio Rumler, 2015. "Semi‐Structural Forecasting of UK Inflation Based on the Hybrid New Keynesian Phillips Curve," Journal of Forecasting, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 34(2), pages 145-162, March.
    12. Rossi, Barbara, 2013. "Advances in Forecasting under Instability," Handbook of Economic Forecasting, in: G. Elliott & C. Granger & A. Timmermann (ed.), Handbook of Economic Forecasting, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 1203-1324, Elsevier.
    13. Enrique Martínez-García, 2019. "Good Policies or Good Luck? New Insights on Globalization and the International Monetary Policy Transmission Mechanism," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 54(1), pages 419-454, June.
    14. Cwik, Tobias & Müller, Gernot J. & Wolters, Maik H., 2011. "Does trade integration alter monetary policy transmission?," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 35(4), pages 545-564, April.
    15. Jarod Coulter & Roberto Duncan & Enrique Martínez-García, 2022. "Flexible Average Inflation Targeting: How Much Is U.S. MonetaryPolicy Changing?," Revista Economía, Fondo Editorial - Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, vol. 45(89), pages 102-149.
    16. Etro, Federico, 2017. "Research in economics and macroeconomics," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(3), pages 373-383.
    17. Faith Christian Cacnio, 2013. "Analysing inflation dynamics in the Philippines using the new Keynesian Phililips curve," Philippine Review of Economics, University of the Philippines School of Economics and Philippine Economic Society, vol. 50(2), pages 53-82, December.
    18. Minford, Patrick & Ou, Zhirong, 2013. "Taylor Rule or optimal timeless policy? Reconsidering the Fed's behavior since 1982," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 32(C), pages 113-123.
    19. Michael McLeay & Silvana Tenreyro, 2020. "Optimal Inflation and the Identification of the Phillips Curve," NBER Macroeconomics Annual, University of Chicago Press, vol. 34(1), pages 199-255.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Global Slack; New Open-Economy Phillips Curve; Open-Economy New Keynesian Model; Forecasting.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F41 - International Economics - - Macroeconomic Aspects of International Trade and Finance - - - Open Economy Macroeconomics
    • F44 - International Economics - - Macroeconomic Aspects of International Trade and Finance - - - International Business Cycles
    • F47 - International Economics - - Macroeconomic Aspects of International Trade and Finance - - - Forecasting and Simulation: Models and Applications
    • C53 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric Modeling - - - Forecasting and Prediction Models; Simulation Methods
    • F62 - International Economics - - Economic Impacts of Globalization - - - Macroeconomic Impacts

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:koc:wpaper:1615. 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: Sumru Oz (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dekoctr.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.