High Inflation Episodes Research Articles

Brazilian Stagflation

Alexandre Tombini, the governor of the Central Bank of Brazil, faced a difficult situation in July 2015. Inflation was in the double digits, well above the target rate of 4.5%, and unemployment had increased from around 4.5% a year prior to nearly 8%. Any actions Tombini took to control inflation would most likely exacerbate unemployment, at least in the short run. To further complicate matters, Tombini's office was not independent of the executive branch of Brazil's government, and Tombini faced the possibility that any of his actions that were not aligned with the priorities of the current administration could cost him his job.This case follows classes on fiscal and monetary policy in normal times and is the first class in a sequence on macroeconomic challenges–in this case, stagflation–high inflation and high unemployment. Students are pushed to consider why macroeconomic stabilization involves such acute and unpleasant tradeoffs during episodes of high inflation and unemployment. Students use the IS/LM AD/AS model as a reference.

Інфляція як мірило незалежності центральних банків

The aim of the article is to study the process of formation of the modern paradigm of independence of central banks, determine the role of inflation in it, outline the criteria for independence and determine the dynamics of legal indicators of autonomy of monetary institutions. It is noted that the impetus for changes in relations between governments and central banks of many industrialized countries was the episodes of high inflation in the 1970s. Awareness of the problem of the time discrepancy between the short-term perspective of political decisions and their long-term impact on the economy provoked institutional changes in the status of monetary institutions. They envisaged the prioritization of central banks’ activities to ensure a consistently low level of inflation and provide independence to achieve it. It is also noted that in countries with economies in transition, the tendency to separate central banks into an independent institution was implemented during the 1990s. The criteria for the independence of central banks are determined by legislation and their charters. These usually include the following: isolation of central bank leadership from political pressure; prohibition to give instructions to central banks in the conduct of monetary policy; a clearly defined purpose of monetary policy; restrictions on lending to government programs and budget deficits. In addition to the formally defined independence, there is also the actual independence of central banks, which is usually outlined through the index of management turnover of monetary institutions and its correlation with the inflation rate. But this does not take into account other (exogenous) factors that affect the inflation rate, which makes the studies less relevant. In addition, the construction of any indices includes an arbitrary weight value of each of them, which reflects the sensitivity of the results obtained depending on their composition. As noted in the study, instead of a static analysis of the indicators of independence of central banks, it is more expedient to determine their modification from the beginning of the formation of the modern paradigm of independence to the present day. The analysis showed that since the beginning of the 1970s, most of the countries studied have changed the rules prohibiting central banks from financing (in any form) the budget deficit. At the same time, obstacles to interference in monetary policy were established. This suggests that the change in these criteria had the greatest impact on the downward trend in the level and volatility of inflation in the period under study.

Monetay Unions and High Inflation Episodes (HIEs)

Monetay Unions and High Inflation Episodes (HIEs)

Effects of Interest Rate Policy on Inflation

This paper analyzes the episodes of high inflation and the efficacy of raising interest rates in reducing inflationary pressures in the U.S. economy. Estimating a Markov-switching regression model, the results show that high inflation frequently occurred from 1975 to 1983 with the most prolonged duration. In the 2000s, there were merely two inflationary months in 2008, but this is too short to call it a period. Then, after a period of low inflation in 2020, inflationary pressure started to build up. From March 2021 to the present, a period of high inflation has been prevailing. The estimation results suggest that the period from 1976 to 1983 is one episode of the high inflation period, and the period from 2016 to 2022 is the second period, which is about equal in length to both periods. A simple sub-period analysis shows that an increase in the federal funds rate lowers future inflation in both periods. A vector autoregression model is then estimated to identify the monetary policy channel via the short-term interest rate together with other variables such as inflation expectations and real economic activity. A one standard deviation increase in the federal funds rate can reduce annual inflation by up to 1.6 percent in the first period and 0.74 percent in the second. The effects on expected inflation are also comparable. The results suggest that interest rate policy has been effective in controlling inflation.

Asymmetric Effects of Fiscal Deficit Financing and Inflation Dynamics in Ghana

Fiscal Deficit Financing (FDF) has been unsustainably high in Ghana and this has led to unstable and high inflation episodes since 1980. The FDF averaged 4.6% from 2005-2011 and 6.9% to 2012-2018, while inflation averaged 11.0% and 13.1% relative to medium-term to long-term inflation target of 8.0% in the same periods, respectively. Previous studies on deficit financing-inflation nexus in Ghana have primarily focused on linear and symmetric relationship, thereby ignoring the asymmetric policy effects of FDF on inflation dynamics. Disregarding the asymmetry of FDF could impact negatively on efforts of Bank of Ghana in forecasting and controlling inflation effectively. To address this problem, this study was therefore designed to investigate the asymmetric policy effects of FDF on inflation dynamics in Ghana over the period 1980-2018. The fiscal theory of the price level provided the theoretical framework. The Non-linear Autoregressive Distributed Lag (NARDL) econometric methodology was deployed to examine the asymmetric effects of FDF on inflation dynamics. The paper found that FDF had asymmetric effects on inflation dynamics in Ghana as the positive outcome of FDF had a significant positive asymmetric effect of 29.0% on inflation while its negative outcome had a relatively less asymmetric effect of 22% on inflation dynamics, suggesting that consolidating fiscal policy was disinflationary. The paper finally recommends that fiscal authorities should adopt consolidating and prudent fiscal policies that could lead to fiscal solvency and sustainability, which could potentially moderate the effect of FDF on inflation dynamics.

Inflation to peak higher, but don't panic yet

▪ Inflation in the UK is set to peak higher for longer than we previously expected. But structural factors plus the likelihood that supply problems will eventually be resolved mean we still think the spike will prove transitory. ▪ We now think that CPI inflation will peak over 4% and remain above 3% until H2 2022. Rising petrol prices in the near‐term and another hefty rise in energy bills likely next April will fuel the increase. ▪ But so far price pressures have been localised, while we see little evidence that higher inflation is feeding into inflation expectations. And even if it did, most workers have less negotiating power compared to past high inflation episodes.

International Historical Evidence on Money Growth and Inflation: The Role of High Inflation Episodes

Abstract How long is the long run in the relationship between money growth and inflation? How important are high inflation episodes for the unit slope finding in the quantity theory of money? To answer these questions, we study the relationship between excess money growth and inflation over time and across frequencies using annual data from 1870 to 2013 for 16 developed countries. Wavelet-based exploratory analysis shows the existence of a close stable relationship between excess money growth and inflation only over long time horizons, i.e. periods greater than 16–24 years, with money growth mostly leading. When we investigate the sensitivity of the unit slope finding to inflation episodes using a “time-frequency-based” panel data approach, we find that low-frequency regression coefficients estimated over variable-length subsamples are largely affected by high inflation episodes occurring in the 1910s, the 1940s, and the 1970s. Taken together, our results suggest that inflationary upsurges affect regression coefficients, but not the closeness of the long-run relationship. This reconciles the validity of the quantity theory of money with the current disinterest of monetary policymaking in money growth.

Investors Can Temper Their Inflation Fears: Post-COVID Inflation is Unlikely to Resemble the Great Inflation of 1968 to 1982

On August 11, 2021, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported a 5.4% per year increase in the CPI for the third consecutive month, intensifying the ongoing debate about whether high inflation will prove temporary or more lasting. This paper seeks to inform this debate by evaluating the current conditions contributing to the recent uptick in inflation and comparing them to conditions that caused similar episodes of high inflation in the past. The paper concludes that inflationary pressures are likely to be temporary, perhaps resembling the two-year period that followed World War I and the Great Influenza. It appears highly unlikely, however, that the United States is on the brink of another Great Inflation, which lasted from 1968 to 1982. The primary reason is that the Federal Reserve of today is much less likely to suffer from the philosophical biases, knowledge gaps, and political pressures that allowed the Great Inflation to occur. If the conclusions in this paper are correct, they may prove valuable to investors. Should elevated levels of inflation prove temporary, over-reactions may lead to decisions that impair an investor's long-term objectives rather than foster their achievement.

Panel logit regression analysis of the effects of corruption on inflation pattern in the Economic Community of West African states

It is widely believed that increase in money supply increases inflation rates in the long run. Dissenting evidences have later emerged to show that the inflation-money growth link has weakened over time. This study provides a political interpretation of inflation rates dynamics by investigating corruption as a potential risk factor associated with high inflation in the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) using panel logit model. All 15 ECOWAS members were selected and studied between 1995 and 2019. Estimates revealed that, in the long run, ECOWAS inflation was significantly determined by past inflation shocks, level of corruption, real GDP and exchange rates; the link between inflation and money supply growth had indeed weakened over time. In particular, results showed that, other things given, a unit increase in the level of corruption increased the risk of high inflation by 82.6%. Results also indicated that seigniorage was not enough to explain the link between inflation and corruption, suggesting that some other channels exist through which corruption affects inflation. In addition, taking 0.5 as the benchmark for forecast probabilities, the logit model reconstructed all the high inflation episodes experienced in ECOWAS in spite of the outlying observations of Liberia and Guinea. The study therefore concludes that other things given, the more corrupt ECOWAS members are, the higher the likelihood to experience high inflation.

Money Growth and Inflation: International Historical Evidence on High Inflation Episodes for Developed Countries

Money Growth and Inflation: International Historical Evidence on High Inflation Episodes for Developed Countries

How should Central Banks Respond to Non-neutral Inflation Expectations?

This paper investigates the net real inflation effect on output in ten countries, comprising both advanced and developing countries. An indicator is introduced to compute the net inflation effect on output (NIEO) based on the difference between two concepts of core inflation, where both are computed using the decomposition of VAR residuals. We find that for all countries, when inflation is increasing the NIEO is significantly positive and is negative during periods of decreasing inflation. Typically, countries which follow anti-inflationary policies if the NIEO is of small magnitude suffer relatively minimal damage in output, whereas if the same policies are undertaken when the NIEO is large the damaging effects on output could be much greater. This suggests that the NIEO could be a useful indicator of the likely effects of policy, especially for countries which have frequent episodes of high inflation, and in those countries which employ inflation-targeting policy, as the timing of monetary policy actions could be optimized to take account of this real effect of inflation.

A Brief Introduction to Macroeconomics

This technical note sets the groundwork for a module on macroeconomics by introducing concepts and definitions that will be revisited in subsequent technical notes. The note begins by introducing national income accounting and the components of gross domestic product (GDP), and by discussing why economists care about GDP. It then discusses how the determinants of the components of GDP interact on the market, and how we can predict GDP and interest rates through the lens of a model—a framework that maps assumptions into outcomes. The note introduces students to basic economic modeling by walking them through examples of how to determine endogenous variables from systems of equations and exogenous variables. The note concludes by discussing the role of assumptions in macroeconomics and by listing some of the assumptions that we will maintain in subsequent technical notes. Excerpt UVA-GEM-0125 Rev. Jun. 3, 2019 A Brief Introduction to Macroeconomics What determines gross domestic product (GDP), unemployment, exchange rates, interest rates, and inflation? Why do some countries grow quickly while others stagnate? These are the types of questions that the study of macroeconomics addresses. The answers to these questions are important to policymakers, firms, and households. For example: Policymakers attempt to understand the forces causing recessions and booms so they can steer the economy away from prolonged episodes of high unemployment or excess inflation. Firm managers want to understand how demand for their product evolves with the macroeconomy, as well as how changes in interest rates, inflation, and exchange rates affect their costs and revenues. . . .

An Assessment of selected Episodes of High Inflation in India & Measures to Control

Philip's curve and other theories state that economic growth introduces inflation in an economy. But there should be outer limit of inflation rate which can be controlled by government/central bank and also be reasonable. If we know potency of our tools control of inflation then we can take risk of inflation.

The Efficacy of Nigeria Monetary Policy: A Comparative Analysis

<em>This study assesses the efficacy of the Nigeria’s monetary policy against the backdrop of single digit inflation monetary policy target of the regulatory authorities. Two related questions were constructed to guide the study. Relying on both the Keynesian and Structuralist analyses, data were harvested on inflationary performance for 24 years on Nigeria economy from the World Bank data base and assessed it against achievement of the targeted single digit inflation. Thereafter Nigeria inflationary performance was compared with that of South Africa another leading African economy. It was realized that inflationary pressure on the South African economy was lower than that of Nigeria, even when both countries faced high inflation episodes during the early decade of 1990s. Findings which confirm the structuralist’s argument revealed that factors beyond the purview of monetary policy constrained the realization of single digit inflation. These include the existence of various and uncontrolled sources of liquidity in the country, government fiscal operation, which include financing of deficit budget and monetization of deficits, the existence of large informal credit markets, among others. Based on this, we recommend for concerted improvement of public infrastructure, the perfection of cashless economy programme, effective prosecution of war against corruption, and the creation of a single treasury account to help close leakages especially those linked to revenue accruable to government through MDAs and remittance to States and MDAs, among others.</em>

Extended nonlinear feedback model for describing episodes of high inflation

An extension of the nonlinear feedback (NLF) formalism to describe regimes of hyper- and high-inflation in economy is proposed in the present work. In the NLF model the consumer price index (CPI) exhibits a finite time singularity of the type $1/(t_c -t)^{(1- \beta)/\beta}$, with $\beta>0$, predicting a blow up of the economy at a critical time $t_c$. However, this model fails in determining $t_c$ in the case of weak hyperinflation regimes like, e.g., that occurred in Israel. To overcome this trouble, the NLF model is extended by introducing a parameter $\gamma$, which multiplies all therms with past growth rate index (GRI). In this novel approach the solution for CPI is also analytic being proportional to the Gaussian hypergeometric function $_2F_1(1/\beta,1/\beta,1+1/\beta;z)$, where $z$ is a function of $\beta$, $\gamma$, and $t_c$. For $z \to 1$ this hypergeometric function diverges leading to a finite time singularity, from which a value of $t_c$ can be determined. This singularity is also present in GRI. It is shown that the interplay between parameters $\beta$ and $\gamma$ may produce phenomena of multiple equilibria. An analysis of the severe hyperinflation occurred in Hungary proves that the novel model is robust. When this model is used for examining data of Israel a reasonable $t_c$ is got. High-inflation regimes in Mexico and Iceland, which exhibit weaker inflations than that of Israel, are also successfully described.

Analyzing South Africa’s inflation persistence using an ARFIMA model with Markov-switching fractional differencing parameter

The successful conduct of monetary policy relies on accurately characterising inflation’s data generating properties. Monetary policy errors that allow inflation to transition to a high inflation regime that is very persistent might have costly economic implications as the central bank attempts to bring inflation to a lower regime, say at some target level. This paper studies the duration of inflation persistence over time and across various policy regimes. We test the inertial properties of South African inflation in a Markov-Switching autoregressive fractionally integrated moving average model. We isolate period of high inflation and low inflation and analyse how persistent it is. This is an unique application to South Africa. The use of a fractional differencing ARIMA model allows for the possibility that inflation is close to a unit root, however, still mean reverting. This implies that shocks to inflation is very persistent and take long to dissipate. The inflation persistence is measured using a test by Ng and Perron (2001). We show that inflation is more persistent during high inflation episodes relative to low inflation episodes and more volatile during low inflation periods compared to high inflation periods. We estimate that it takes approximately 70 months for 50 percent of the shocks to dissipate in a high inflation regime compared to 10 months in a low inflation regime. The model identifies three structural breaks - a low inflation regime from 1920 until 1960, a high inflation regime from 1961 until 2003, and another low inflation regime over part of the inflation targeting period, 2003-2014. We also show that inflation persistence in the high inflation regime transitioned to a low inflation regime only much later than the implementation of inflation targeting - hinting that agents take time to adjust expectations. This has an important consequence for monetary policy - monetary policy errors that allow inflation to transition to a high inflation regime may take many months for any corrective policy to become effective.

Do quantitative monetary targets matter?

This paper evaluates the effects of monetary policy directed at inflation across different levels using panel data quantile regression and instrumental variable quantile regression methods. We identify a heterogeneous and nonlinear relationship between an explicit quantitative goal for monetary policy and inflation after controlling for the problem of possible endogeneity. We also find that both having and successfully hitting quantitative targets is more effective for monetary policy in lowering inflation in high-inflation episodes than in low-inflation episodes. When countries suffer from severe inflation problems, the adoption of quantitative goals for monetary policies can thus deliver important economic gains. Conversely, the adoption of quantitative goals may not result in a lowering of inflation when countries are more economically sound.

Making the most of high inflation

This article examines the relationship between the real effects of inflation and its level in countries with frequent episodes of high inflation. The real effects are computed as asymmetric impulse responses of output to inflation separately in the regimes with different signs of the differences between the expected inflation and the predicted output-neutral inflation. It is found that, with the increase in inflation, such effects increase in the regime with the positive sign, relatively to the effects in the regime with the negative sign. It is also shown that this finding is valid for most countries with high inflation episodes, where inflation is greater than 4.8% for at least 25% of quarterly observations. This leads to a simple policy prescription that, in economies with frequent high inflation episodes, anti-inflationary monetary decisions are least damaging for output if undertaken in the periods when the difference between the expected and output-neutral inflation is negative.

Exchange rate pass-through and the frequency of price adjustment across different inflation regimes

The paper explores the link between the inflationary environment and the size of the exchange rate pass-through (ERPT) into domestic prices, as inflation descends from an extreme, second highest and second longest hyperinflation in the 20th century, to high and then moderate inflation in Serbia. We found that ERPT decreases with a decline in the inflation level, variability and persistence, thus supplementing findings previously acquired in panel studies across countries. Our findings can be explained by surging empirical evidence on state contingent behavior of pricing, which indicates a sharp increase in the frequency of price adjustment as one moves from moderate, via high to hyperinflation, suggesting that the degree of price rigidities is a key determinant of the size and speed of ERPT. ERPT estimates are embedded in careful analysis of inflation episodes in Serbia, showing that hyper and high inflation episodes subscribe to the same, fiscal explanation, as opposed to the moderate inflation ones, where supply and demand shocks have been the main inflation drivers.

How I learned to stop worrying and love the crisis

We investigate the effects of economic crises on the subsequent economic, performance, economic reform, democratization and institutional change. Our analysis is based on a sample of post-communist countries, most of which experienced severe economic, crises during the 1990s. We find that the severity of crisis has a positive impact on the subsequent pace of economic reform, economic growth and, with a delay, on investment and institutional change. Episodes of high inflation, moreover, translate into lower subsequent inflation. Crises thus serve as catalysts of reform and institutional change and lead to better long-term economic performance.