[go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/jecper/v11y1997i1p11-32.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Time-Varying NAIRU and Its Implications for Economic Policy

Author

Listed:
  • Robert J. Gordon
Abstract
The NAIRU, the unemployment rate consistent with a constant rate of inflation, is estimated, in this paper, as a parameter allowed to vary over time. Value is determined in an econometric model where the inflation rate depends on its past values, demand and supply shocks. The NAIRU estimated for the GDP deflator varies over the past forty years within 5.4 to 6.5 percent; its estimated value for the most recent quarter (1996:Q2) is 5.6 percent. The NAIRU has declined in recent years in response to global competition, immigration, other factors weakening labor's bargaining position, and the rapidly declining prices of computers and other electronics.

Suggested Citation

  • Robert J. Gordon, 1997. "The Time-Varying NAIRU and Its Implications for Economic Policy," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 11(1), pages 11-32, Winter.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:jecper:v:11:y:1997:i:1:p:11-32
    Note: DOI: 10.1257/jep.11.1.11
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/jep.11.1.11
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Barro, Robert J, 1978. "Unanticipated Money, Output, and the Price Level in the United States," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 86(4), pages 549-580, August.
    2. Gordon, Robert J, 1990. "What Is New-Keynesian Economics?," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 28(3), pages 1115-1171, September.
    3. Christina D. Romer, 1996. "Inflation and the Growth Rate of Output," NBER Working Papers 5575, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Robert J. Gordon, 1975. "The Impact of Aggregate Demand on Prices," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 6(3), pages 613-670.
    5. Robert J. Gordon, 1970. "The Recent Acceleration of Inflation and Its Lessons for the Future," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 1(1), pages 8-47.
    6. Robert G. King & James H. Stock & Mark W. Watson, 1995. "Temporal instability of the unemployment-inflation relationship," Economic Perspectives, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, vol. 19(May), pages 2-12.
    7. Douglas O. Staiger & James H. Stock & Mark W. Watson, 1997. "How Precise Are Estimates of the Natural Rate of Unemployment?," NBER Chapters, in: Reducing Inflation: Motivation and Strategy, pages 195-246, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Robert E. Lucas & Thomas J. Sargent, 1979. "After Keynesian macroeconomics," Quarterly Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, vol. 3(Spr).
    9. George L. Perry, 1970. "Changing Labor Markets and Inflation," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 1(3), pages 411-448.
    10. Robert J. Gordon & Stephen R. King, 1982. "The Output Cost of Disinflation in Traditional and Vector Autoregressive Models," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 13(1), pages 205-244.
    11. Lucas, Robert E, Jr & Rapping, Leonard A, 1969. "Price Expectations and the Phillips Curve," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 59(3), pages 342-350, June.
    12. Robert J. Gordon, 1988. "U.S. Inflation, Labor's Share, and the Natural Rate of Unemployment," NBER Working Papers 2585, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Gordon, Robert J, 1977. "The Theory of Domestic Inflation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 67(1), pages 128-134, February.
    14. George A. Akerlof & William R. Dickens & George L. Perry, 1996. "The Macroeconomics of Low Inflation," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 27(1), pages 1-76.
    15. King, Robert G. & Watson, Mark W., 1994. "The post-war U.S. phillips curve: a revisionist econometric history," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 41(1), pages 157-219, December.
    16. Charles L. Schultze, 1975. "Falling Profits, Rising Profit Margins, and the Full-Employment Profit Rate," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 6(2), pages 449-472.
    17. Robert J. Gordon, 1981. "Inflation, Flexible Exchange Rates, and the Natural Rate of Unemployment," NBER Working Papers 0708, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Aurélien Goutsmedt & Goulven Rubin, 2018. "Robert J. Gordon and the introduction of the natural rate hypothesis in the Keynesian framework," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) halshs-01821825, HAL.
    2. Douglas Staiger & James H. Stock & Mark W. Watson, 2001. "Prices, Wages and the U.S. NAIRU in the 1990s," NBER Working Papers 8320, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Pierre Fortin & George A. Akerlof & William T. Dickens & George L. Perry, 2002. "Inflation and Unemployment in the U.S. and Canada: A Common Framework," Cahiers de recherche du Département des sciences économiques, UQAM 20-16, Université du Québec à Montréal, Département des sciences économiques.
    4. repec:hal:wpspec:info:hdl:2441/2005 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Marika Karanassou & Hector Sala & Dennis J. Snower, 2010. "Phillips Curves And Unemployment Dynamics: A Critique And A Holistic Perspective," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(1), pages 1-51, February.
    6. Łukasz Arendt, 2005. "Próba oszacowania NAIRU dla Polski," Gospodarka Narodowa. The Polish Journal of Economics, Warsaw School of Economics, issue 5-6, pages 1-23.
    7. Robert J. Gordon, 2011. "The History of the Phillips Curve: Consensus and Bifurcation," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 78(309), pages 10-50, January.
    8. Bill Russell & Anindya Banerjee & Issam Malki & Natalia Ponomareva, 2010. "A Multiple Break Panel Approach To Estimating United States Phillips Curves," Dundee Discussion Papers in Economics 232, Economic Studies, University of Dundee.
    9. Douglas Staiger & James H. Stock & Mark W. Watson, 1997. "The NAIRU, Unemployment and Monetary Policy," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 11(1), pages 33-49, Winter.
    10. George A. Akerlof, 2003. "Behavioral Macroeconomics and Macroeconomic Behavior," The American Economist, Sage Publications, vol. 47(1), pages 25-47, March.
    11. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/2005 is not listed on IDEAS
    12. Russell, Bill, 2011. "Non-stationary inflation and panel estimates of United States short and long-run Phillips curves," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 33(3), pages 406-419, September.
    13. Éric Heyer & Frédéric Reynès & Henri Sterdyniak, 2005. "Variables observables et inobservables dans la théorie du taux de chômage d'équilibre. Une comparaison France/États-Unis," Revue économique, Presses de Sciences-Po, vol. 56(3), pages 593-603.
    14. Robert J. Gordon, 1990. "The Phillips Curve Now and Then," NBER Working Papers 3393, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. repec:spo:wpecon:info:hdl:2441/2005 is not listed on IDEAS
    16. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/2005 is not listed on IDEAS
    17. Stanley Fischer, 1996. "Why are central banks pursuing long-run price stability?," Proceedings - Economic Policy Symposium - Jackson Hole, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, pages 7-34.
    18. Aurélien Goutsmedt, 2021. "From the Stagflation to the Great Inflation: Explaining the US economy of the 1970s," Revue d'économie politique, Dalloz, vol. 131(3), pages 557-582.
    19. Arabinda Basistha & Richard Startz, 2004. "Measuring the NAIRU with Reduced Uncertainty: A Multiple Indicator-Common Component Approach," Working Papers UWEC-2004-22, University of Washington, Department of Economics.
    20. Baffigi, Alberto & Bontempi, Maria Elena & Felice, Emanuele & Golinelli, Roberto, 2015. "The changing relationship between inflation and the economic cycle in Italy: 1861–2012," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 53-70.
    21. Murphy, Robert G., 2014. "Explaining inflation in the aftermath of the Great Recession," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 228-244.
    22. Robert G. King & Mark W. Watson, 1994. "The Post-War U.S. Phillips Curve: A Revisionist Econometric History," Working Papers 1994-2, Princeton University. Economics Department..
    23. Volker Wieland, "undated". "Monetary Policy and Uncertainty about the Natural Unemployment Rate," Computing in Economics and Finance 1997 11, Society for Computational Economics.
    24. Eliasson, Ann-Charlotte, 2001. "Is the Short-run Phillips Curve Nonlinear? Empirical Evidence for Australia, Sweden and the United States," Working Paper Series 124, Sveriges Riksbank (Central Bank of Sweden).

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • E24 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution; Aggregate Human Capital; Aggregate Labor Productivity
    • E31 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Price Level; Inflation; Deflation
    • E52 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Monetary Policy

    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:aea:jecper:v:11:y:1997:i:1:p:11-32. 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: Michael P. Albert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.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.