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The role of trend inflation shocks for the U.S. macroeconomic dynamics is investigated by estimating two DSGE models of the business cycle. Policymakers are assumed to be concerned with a time-varying inflation target, which is modeled as a persistent and stochastic process. The identification of trend inflation shocks (as opposed to a number of alternative innovations) is achieved by exploiting the measure of trend inflation recently proposed by Aruoba and Schorfheide (2011). Our main findings point to a substantial contribution of trend inflation shocks for the volatility of inflation and the policy rate. Such contribution is found to be time dependent and highest during the mid-1970s to mid-1980s.

This chapter investigates the impact of different state correlation assumptions for out-of-sample performance of unobserved components (UC) models with stochastic volatility. Using several measures of US inflation the author finds that allowing for correlation between inflation’s trend and cyclical (or gap) components is a useful feature to predict inflation in the short run. In contrast, orthogonality between such components improves the out-of-sample performance as the forecasting horizon widens. Accordingly, trend inflation from orthogonal trend-gap UC models closely tracks survey-based measures of long-run inflation expectations. Trend dynamics in the correlated-component case behave similarly to survey-based nowcasts. To carry out estimation, an efficient algorithm which builds upon properties of Toeplitz matrices and recent advances in precision-based samplers is provided.

This paper analyzes variations in the effects of monetary and fiscal shocks on responses of macroeconomic variables, determinacy region, and welfare costs due to changes in trend inflation.

The authors develop the New-Keynesian model, in which the central banks can employ either nominal interest rate (IR rule) or money supply (MS rule) to conduct monetary policies. They also use their capital and recurrent spending budgets to conduct fiscal policies. By using the simulated method of moment (SMM) for parameter estimation, the authors characterize Vietnam's economy during 1996Q1–2015Q1.

The results report that consequences of monetary policy and fiscal policy shocks become more serious if there is a rise in trend inflation. Furthermore, the money supply might not be an effective instrument, and using the government budget for recurrent spending produces severe consequences in the high-trend inflation economy.

This paper's findings are critical for economists and monetary and fiscal authorities in effectively designing both the monetary and fiscal policies in confronting the shift in the inflation targets.

This is the first paper that examines the effects of trend inflation on the monetary and fiscal policy implementation in the case of Vietnam.

We analyze the interaction among the common and country-specific components for the inflation rates in 12 euro area countries through a factor model with time-varying parameters. The variation of the model parameters is driven by the score of the predictive likelihood, so that, conditionally on past data, the model is Gaussian and the likelihood function can be evaluated using the Kalman filter. The empirical analysis uncovers significant variation over time in the model parameters. We find that, over an extended time period, inflation persistence has fallen and the importance of common shocks has increased relatively to that of idiosyncratic disturbances. According to the model, the fall in inflation observed since the sovereign debt crisis is broadly a common phenomenon since no significant cross-country inflation differentials have emerged. Stressed countries, however, have been hit by unusually large shocks.

Long-term interest rates of small open economies (SOE) correlate strongly with the USA long-term rate. Can central banks in those countries decouple from the United States? An estimated Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium (DSGE) model for the UK (vis-á-vis the USA) establishes three structural empirical results: (1) Comovement arises due to nominal fluctuations, not through real rates or term premia; (2) the cause of comovement is the central bank of the SOE accommodating foreign inflation trends, rather than systematically curbing them; and (3) SOE may find themselves much more affected by changes in USA inflation trends than the United States itself. All three results are shown to be intuitive and backed by off-model evidence.

Vector‐autoregression (VAR), integration, and cointegration models are used to investigate the causal relations, dynamic interaction, and a common trend between interest rates and inflation in nine countries in the Pacific‐Basin. This paper finds that for all countries, short‐ and long‐term interest rates and the spread between the long‐term interest rates and inflation are non‐stationary I (1) processes. The nominal interest rates and inflation are not co‐integrated. In addition to this study’s inability to find a unidirectional causality between inflation and interest rates, when the VAR model is used, it also fails to find a consistent positive response either of inflation to shocks in interest rates or of interest rates to shocks in inflation in most of the countries studied. The VAR model results are consistent with the cointegration tests’ results, that is, nominal interest rates are poor predictors for future inflation in the Pacific‐Basin countries.

Small-scale VARs are widely used in macroeconomics for forecasting US output, prices, and interest rates. However, recent work suggests these models may exhibit instabilities. As such, a variety of estimation or forecasting methods might be used to improve their forecast accuracy. These include using different observation windows for estimation, intercept correction, time-varying parameters, break dating, Bayesian shrinkage, model averaging, etc. This paper compares the effectiveness of such methods in real-time forecasting. We use forecasts from univariate time series models, the Survey of Professional Forecasters, and the Federal Reserve Board's Greenbook as benchmarks.

The purpose of this research is to bring upfront some unconventional attributes of inflationary expectations of entrepreneurs. Firm-level attributes are instrumental in shaping the behavior of entrepreneurs, which affect the way in which they form their expectations regarding some key economic variables, like inflation. Inflationary expectations are considered important based on their significant role in affecting decisions taken by individuals, firms and policy makers. Among all economic segments, it is vital to account the inflationary expectations of entrepreneurs representing firms because their decisions critically define the future path of actual inflation and inflation inertia. This basic purpose of this paper is to offer a deterministic framework for these expectations contingent upon the firm-level attributes.

This paper provides survey-based evidence on inflationary expectations of entrepreneurs of the selected manufacturing, trading and service sector firms from Pakistan. Additionally, the study has focused on identifying some firm-level attributes, including market experience of the firm, scale of production, myopia in price setting behavior, forward and backward-looking behavior, rationality of the entrepreneur and the entrepreneur's relative firm-level experience as determinants of these expectations. The specified variables are constructed based on responses captured through a structured questionnaire.

Within an ordinal logistic framework, the study finds that the said attributes including market experience of the firm, scale of production, myopic tendency of entrepreneur in price setting, forward and backward-looking behavior, rationality of the entrepreneur and the entrepreneur's relative firm-level experience play a pivotal role in explaining differentials and heterogeneity in reported level of inflationary expectations.

The study brings upfront some unconventional attributes of inflationary expectations at entrepreneurial level. The work is unique in a sense that it provokes researchers to account behavioral and individualistic attributes within a deterministic framework for inflationary expectations.

The purpose of this paper is to propose and test empirically an inflation model containing permanent and transitory heteroskedastic components for the G7 countries. More specifically, recent evidences from the literature are gathered to construct a model with a heteroskedastic global component capturing comovements amongst G7 economies. Moreover, evidence of asymmetric generalized autoregressive conditionally heteroskedastic effects both in the transitory and in the permanent components are taken into account, and the time‐varying variance of each component allows their influence over the observable inflation to change over time. Out‐of‐sample forecasting exercises are used to test the model validity.

The model is written in state‐space form and estimation is carried out in one step via quasi‐maximum likelihood using the augmented Kalman filter, which allows us to compute smoothed estimates of permanent and of transitory components of inflation rates. Out‐of‐sample forecasts are compared against a random walk (RW) and an autoregressive (AR) model of order one. The significance of the differences in forecast accuracy is tested using the Diebold‐Marino test, the forecast encompassing test, and the Pesaran and Timmermann test.

The proposed model fits the data quite well and has good forecasting capabilities when compared to RW and to AR models of order one. The volatility of the global inflation trend extracted from the model captures the international effects of the “Great Moderation” and of the “Great Recession”. An increase in correlation of inflation for certain country pairs since the start of the “Great Recession” is observed. Moreover, there is evidence of asymmetry in inflation volatility, which is consistent with the idea that higher inflation levels lead to greater uncertainty about future inflation.

This article introduces a new global inflation model with permanent and transitory heteroskedastic components incorporating many recent findings of the literature, and proposes a one step estimation procedure for it. The model fits very well the data and produces good out‐of‐sample forecasts.