Some Simple Tests of the Globalization and Inflation Hypothesis

This paper evaluates the hypothesis that globalization has increased the role of international factors and decreased the role of domestic factors in the inflation process in industrial economies. Towards that end, we estimate standard Phillips curve inflation equations for 11 industrial countries an...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:International finance (Oxford, England) England), 2010-12, Vol.13 (3), p.343-375
Main Authors: Ihrig, Jane, Kamin, Steven B., Lindner, Deborah, Marquez, Jaime
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Econometrics
Economic theory
Globalization
Hypotheses
Inflation
Phillips curve
Studies
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:This paper evaluates the hypothesis that globalization has increased the role of international factors and decreased the role of domestic factors in the inflation process in industrial economies. Towards that end, we estimate standard Phillips curve inflation equations for 11 industrial countries and use these estimates to test several predictions of the globalization and inflation hypothesis. Our results provide little support for this hypothesis. First, the estimated effect of foreign output gaps on domestic consumer price inflation is generally insignificant and often of the wrong sign. Second, we find no evidence that the trend decline in the sensitivity of inflation to the domestic output gap observed in many countries owes to globalization. Finally, and most surprisingly, our econometric results indicate no increase over time in the responsiveness of inflation to import prices for most countries.
ISSN:1367-0271
1468-2362
DOI:10.1111/j.1468-2362.2010.01268.x