Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-fscjk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T05:51:51.934Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

DID THE INTRODUCTION OF THE EURO HAVE AN IMPACT ON INFLATION UNCERTAINTY?—AN EMPIRICAL ASSESSMENT

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 May 2013

Matthias Hartmann*
Affiliation:
Ruprecht-Karls-University Heidelberg
Helmut Herwartz
Affiliation:
Georg-August-University Goettingen
*
Address correspondence to: Matthias Hartmann, Alfred-Weber-Institute for Economics, Ruprecht-Karls-University Heidelberg, Bergheimer Straße 58, D-69115 Heidelberg, Germany: e-mail: [email protected].

Abstract

We compare inflation uncertainty in distinguished groups of economies. Results indicate that during the recent financial crisis the global inflation climate has become markedly more uncertain than previously. We document that in comparison to other economies, member states of the European Monetary Union are less exposed to inflation uncertainty. Three European Union members that are not part of the monetary union and five other OECD member economies serve as control groups. With regard to the quantification of inflation uncertainty, results are robust over a set of alternative estimates of the latent inflation risk processes.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Alesina, Alberto, Barro, Robert J., and Tenreyro, Silvana (2003) Optimal currency areas. In Gertler, Mark and Rogoff, Kenneth S. (eds.), NBER Macroeconomics Annual, vol. 17, pp. 321363. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Andersen, Torben G., Bollerslev, Tim, and Diebold, Francis X. (2004) Parametric and nonparametric measurement of volatility. In Aït-Sahalia, Yacine and Hansen, Lars P. (eds.), Handbook of Financial Econometrics, vol. 1, pp. 67138. Amsterdam: North Holland.Google Scholar
Arnold, Ivo J.M. and Lemmen, Jan J.G. (2008) Inflation expectations and inflation uncertainty in the eurozone: Evidence from survey data. Review of World Economics 144, 325346.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baillie, Richard T., Bollerslev, Tim, and Mikkelsen, Hans O. (1996) Fractionally integrated generalized autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity. Journal of Econometrics 74, 330.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ball, Lawrence (1992) Why does high inflation raise inflation uncertainty? Journal of Monetary Economics 29, 371388.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ball, Lawrence and Cecchetti, Stephen G. (1990) Inflation and uncertainty at short and long horizons. Brookings Papers on Economic Activity 1, 215254.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barnea, Amir, Dotan, Amihud, and Lakonishok, Josef (1979) The effect of price level uncertainty on the determination of nominal interest rates: Some empirical evidence. Southern Economic Journal 45, 609645.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barsky, Robert B. and Kilian, Lutz (2002) Oil and the macroeconomy since the 1970s. Journal of Economic Perspectives 18, 115134.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blanchard, Olivier (2004) Fiscal Dominance and Inflation Targeting: Lessons from Brazil. NBER working paper 10389.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bollerslev, Tim (1986) Generalized autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity. Journal of Econometrics 31, 307327.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Canova, Fabio (1998) Detrending and business cycle facts. Journal of Monetary Economics 41, 475512.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Canova, Fabio (2007) G-7 inflation forecasts: Random walk, Phillips curve or what else? Macroeconomic Dynamics 11, 130.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Caporale, Guglielmo M. and Kontonikas, Alexandros (2009) The euro and inflation uncertainty in the European Monetary Union. Journal of International Money and Finance 28, 954971.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cukierman, Alex (2000) Establishing a reputation for dependability by means of inflation targets. Economics of Governance 1, 5376.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davig, Troy, Leeper, Eric M., and Walker, Todd B. (2011) Inflation and the fiscal limit. European Economic Review 55, 3147.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Devereux, Michael (1989) A positive theory of inflation and inflation variance. Economic Inquiry 27, 105116.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Engle, Robert F. (1982) Autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity with estimates of the variance of United Kingdom inflation. Econometrica 50, 9871007.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Evans, Martin and Wachtel, Paul (1993) Inflation regimes and the sources of inflation uncertainty. Journal of Money, Credit and Banking 25, 475511.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fama, Eugene F. (1976) Inflation uncertainty and expected returns on treasury bills. Journal of Political Economy 84, 427448.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Feldstein, Martin (2005) The euro and the stability pact. Journal of Policy Modeling 27, 421426.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fischer, Stanley and Modigliani, Franco (1978) Towards an understanding of the real effects and costs of inflation. Review of World Economics 114, 810833.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Friedman, Milton (1977) Nobel Lecture: Inflation and unemployment. Journal of Political Economy 85, 451472.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gagnon, Joseph E. and Ihrig, Jane E. (2001) Monetary Policy and Exchange Rate Pass-through. FRB International Finance Discussion Paper 704.Google Scholar
Galí, Jordi, Gertler, Mark, and Lopez-Salido, David (2005) Robustness of the estimates of the hybrid new Keynesian Phillips curve. Journal of Monetary Economics 52, 11071118.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Godfrey, Leslie G. (1988) Misspecification Tests in Econometrics. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Gosh, Atish R., Gulde, Anne-Marie, Ostry, Jonathan D., and Wolf, Holger C. (1995) Does the Nominal Exchange Rate Regime Matter? IMF working paper 121.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grauer, Frederick L.A. and Litzenberger, Robert H. (1980) The pricing of commodity futures contracts, nominal bonds and other risky assets under commodity price uncertainty. Journal of Finance 34, 6983.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grier, Kevin G. and Perry, Mark J. (2000) The effects of real and nominal uncertainty on inflation and output growth: Some GARCH-M evidence. Journal of Applied Econometrics 15, 4558.3.0.CO;2-K>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hansen, Lars P. (1982) Large sample properties of generalized method of moments estimators. Econometrica 50, 10291054.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hartmann, Matthias and Herwartz, Helmut (2012) Friedman–Ball versus Cukierman–Meltzer: A cross sectional empirical investigation on the nature of inflation uncertainty. Economics Letters 115, 144147.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Herwartz, Helmut (2009) A note on model selection in (time series) regression models—General-to-specific or specific-to-general? Applied Economics Letters 17, 11571160.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hodrick, Robert J. and Prescott, Edward C. (1997) Postwar U.S. business cycles: An empirical investigation. Journal of Money, Credit and Banking 29, 116.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Huizinga, John (1993) Inflation uncertainty, relative price uncertainty, and investment in U.S. manufacturing. Journal of Money, Credit and Banking 25, 521549.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kontonikas, Alexandros, Montagnoli, Alberto, and Spagnolo, Nicola (2005) Stock Returns and Inflation: The Impact of Inflation Targeting. Discussion Paper in Economics/University of Glasgow 11.Google Scholar
Mundell, Robert A. (1961) A theory of optimal currency areas. American Economic Review 51, 657665.Google Scholar
Newey, Whitney and West, Kenneth D. (1987) A simple positive semi-definite heteroskedasticity and autocorrelation consistent covariance matrix. Econometrica 55, 703708.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Obstfeld, M., Shambaugh, Jay C., and Taylor, Alan M. (2005) The trilemma in history: Tradeoffs among exchange rates, monetary policies, and capital mobility. Review of Economics and Statistics 87, 423438.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ravn, Morten O. and Uhlig, Harald (2002) On adjusting the Hodrick–Prescott filter for the frequency of observations. Review of Economics and Statistics 84, 371376.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rotemberg, Julio J. (2005) Customer anger at price increases, changes in the frequency of price adjustment and monetary policy. Journal of Monetary Economics 52, 829852.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rumler, Fabio and Valderrama, Maria T. (2010) Comparing the new Keynesian Phillips curve with time series models to forecast inflation. North American Journal of Economics and Finance 21, 126144.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schotman, Peter C. and Schweitzer, Mark (2000) Horizon sensitivity of the inflation hedge of stocks. Journal of Empirical Finance 7, 301315.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schwert, G. William (1989) Why does stock market volatility change over time? Journal of Finance 44, 11151153.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stock, James H. and Watson, Mark W. (2008) Phillips Curve Inflation Forecasts. NBER working paper W14322.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vitek, Francis (2002) An Empirical Analysis of Dynamic Interrelationships among Inflation, Inflation Uncertainty, Relative Price Dispersion, and Output Growth. Bank of Canada working paper 2002-39.Google Scholar
Vroman, Susan B. (1989) Inflation uncertainty and contract duration. Review of Economics and Statistics, 71, 677681.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zangari, Peter (1996) RiskMetrics—Technical Document, 4th ed.New York: J.P. Morgan.Google Scholar