This research examined whether the uncertainty associated with the volatility of inflation impacted unemployment in the G7 countries over the last two decades. The results indicate that inflation variability had a significant short-run effect upon the unemployment rate in Canada, France, Italy, and the US while no effect was found for Germany, Japan, or the UK. However, consistent with economic theory, we find no evidence of a long-run trade-off between inflation variability and unemployment.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
→ AgellJonasBengt-Christine Ysander, “Should Governments Learn to Live with Inflation?: Comment,”American Economic Review83, no. 1 (1993): 305–311.
2.
→ BarroRobert, “Unanticipated Money Growth and Unemployment in the United States,”American Economic Review67, (1977): 101–115.
3.
BroaddusAlfredJ., “Reflections on Monetary Policy,”Economic Quarterly, Federal Reserve Bank”, of Richmond81, no. 2 (Spring 1995): 1–11.
4.
CuikermanAlexS.MeltzerAlan, “A Theory of Ambiguity, Credibility, and Inflation Under Discretion and Assymetric Information,”Econometrica54 (December 1986): 1099–1128.
5.
DickeyD. A.JansenD. W.ThorntonD. L., “A Primer on Cointegration with an Application to Money and Income,”Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Review73 (March/April 1991): 58–78.
6.
→ EngleR. F.GrangerC. W. J., “Cointegration and Error-Correction: Representation, Estimation, and Testing,”Econometrica55 (March 1987): 251–276.
7.
→ FischerStanleySummersLawrence, “Shoul Governments Learn to Live with Inflation?”American Economic Review79 (1989): 382–387.
8.
→ FischerStanleySummersLawrence, “Should Governments Learn to Live with Inflation?: Reply”American Economic Review83, no. 1 (1993): 312–313.
9.
FriedmanMilton, ‘The Role of Monetary Policy,”American Economic Review58 (1968): 1–17.
10.
→ GewekeJohn, “The Supemeutrality of Money in the United States: An Interpretation of the Evidence,”Econometrica54 (1986): 1–21.
11.
→ HallThomasNobleNicholas, “Velocity and Variability of Money Growth: Evidence from Granger-Causality Tests,”Journal of Money, Credit, and Banking19 (1987): 112–116.
12.
KingR. G.WatsonM. W., “Testing Long Run Neutrality,”National Bureau of Economic Research, Working Paper No. 4156 (1992).
13.
→ LogueDennisE.Richard James Sweeney, “Inflation and Real Growth: Some Empirical Results,”Journal of Money, Credit, and Banking13, no. 4 (November 1981): 497–501.
14.
→ LucasRobert, “Two Illustrations of the Quantity Theory of Money,”American Economic Review70 (1980): 1005–1014.
15.
MacKinnonJ. G., “Critical Values for Cointegration Tests in Long-Run Econometric Relationships,” inReadings in Cointegration (Eds.) EngleR. F.GrangerC. W. J., Oxford Press, New York (1991): 266–276.
16.
McCandlessGeorgeT.WarrenE. Weber, “Some Monetary Facts,”Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis Quarterly Review (Summer 1995): 2–11.
17.
→ McMillinDouglasW., “The Velocity of M1 in the 1980s: Evidence from a Multivariate Time Series Model,”Southern Economic Journal57, no. 3 (1991): 634–48.
18.
→ MillsT. C., “Signal Extraction and Two Illustrations of the Quantity Theory,”American Economic Review72 (1982): 1162–1168.
19.
PayneJamesE., “Expectations-Augmented Phillips Curve: Evidence from State Economies,”Applied Economics Letters2 (1995): 248–254.
20.
→ PhelpsEdmundS., “Phillips Curves, Expectations of Inflation, and Optimal Unemployment over Time,”Economica34 (August 1967): 254–281.
21.
→ PhillipsA. W., “The Relation between Unemployment and the Rate of Change of Money Wage Rates in the United Kingdom, 1861–1957”Economica25 (November 1958): 283–299.
22.
PlosserCharlesJ.RouwenhorstK. Geert, “International Term Structures and Real Economic Growth,”Journal of Monetary Economics33 (1994): 133–155.
23.
ReaganPatriciaStulzRene, “Contracting Costs, Inflation, and Relative Price Variability,”Journal of Money, Credit, and Banking25, no. 3 (August 1993): 521–549.
24.
SerletisApostolosKrauseDavid, “Empirical Evidence on the Long-Run Neutrality Hypothesis Using Low-Frequency International Data,”Economics Letters50 (1996): 323–327.
25.
ThorntonJohn, “Inflation and Output Growth: Some Time Series Evidence, A Note,”American Economist32, no. 2 (Fall 1988): 55–58.
26.
WeberAxelA., “Testing Long-Run Neutrality: Empirical Evidence for G7 Countries with Special Emphasis on Germany,”Center for Economic Policy Research, Discussion Paper No. 1042 (October 1994).