E3 - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles

• Inventories, Markups, and Real Rigidities in Menu Cost Models

  Staff Working Paper 2009-6 Oleksiy Kryvtsov, Virgiliu Midrigan

  Real rigidities that limit the responsiveness of real marginal cost to output are a key ingredient of sticky price models necessary to account for the dynamics of output and inflation. We argue here, in the spirit of Bils and Kahn (2000), that the behavior of marginal cost over the cycle is directly related to that of inventories, data on which is readily available.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Business fluctuations and cycles, Monetary policy transmission JEL Code(s): E, E3, E31, F, F1, F12

• Price Level Targeting in a Small Open Economy with Financial Frictions: Welfare Analysis

  Staff Working Paper 2008-40 Ali Dib, Caterina Mendicino, Yahong Zhang

  How important are the benefits of low price-level uncertainty? This paper explores the desirability of price-level path targeting in an estimated DSGE model fit to Canadian data. The policy implications are based on social welfare evaluations.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Financial stability, Inflation and prices, Monetary policy framework JEL Code(s): E, E3, E31, E32, E5, E52

• Import Price Dynamics in Major Advanced Economies and Heterogeneity in Exchange Rate Pass-Through

  Staff Working Paper 2008-39 Stephane Dees, Matthias Burgert, Nicolas Parent

  This paper aims at showing heterogeneity in the degree of exchange rate pass-through to import prices in major advanced economies at three different levels: 1) across destination markets; 2) across types of exporters (distinguishing developed economy from emerging economy exporters); and 3) over time.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Exchange rates, Inflation and prices JEL Code(s): E, E3, E31, F, F3, F4, F41

• Adopting Price-Level Targeting under Imperfect Credibility: An Update

  Staff Working Paper 2008-37 Oleksiy Kryvtsov, Malik Shukayev, Alexander Ueberfeldt

  This paper measures the welfare gains of switching from inflation-targeting to price-level targeting under imperfect credibility. Vestin (2006) shows that when the monetary authority cannot commit to future policy, price-level targeting yields higher welfare than inflation targeting.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Credibility, Monetary policy framework JEL Code(s): E, E3, E31, E5, E52

• Globalization and Inflation: The Role of China

  Staff Working Paper 2008-35 Denise Côté, Carlos De Resende

  In this paper, we develop a theoretical model which identifies four channels–import prices, competition with domestic suppliers and workers, and commodity prices–through which price- and wage-setting conditions in country j may affect inflation in country i.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): International topics JEL Code(s): E, E2, E22, E3, E32, E4, E44

• Aggregate and Welfare Effects of Redistribution of Wealth Under Inflation and Price-Level Targeting

  Staff Working Paper 2008-31 Césaire Meh, José-Víctor Ríos-Rull, Yaz Terajima

  Since the work of Doepke and Schneider (2006a) and Meh and Terajima (2008), we know that inflation causes major redistribution of wealth – between households and the government, between nationals and foreigners, and between households within the same country.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Economic models, Inflation and prices, Inflation targets, Inflation: costs and benefits, Monetary policy framework, Sectoral balance sheet JEL Code(s): D, D3, D31, E, E2, E21, E3, E31, E4, E44, E5, E52, E6, E63

• The Welfare Implications of Fiscal Dominance

  Staff Working Paper 2008-28 Carlos De Resende, Nooman Rebei

  This paper studies the interdependence between fiscal and monetary policy in a DSGE model with sticky prices and non-zero trend inflation. We characterize the fiscal and monetary policies by a rule whereby a given fraction k of the government debt must be backed by the discounted value of current and future primary surpluses.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Economic models, Fiscal policy, Inflation: costs and benefits, Monetary policy framework JEL Code(s): E, E3, E31, E4, E42, E5, E50, E6, E63

• Are Bygones not Bygones? Modeling Price Level Targeting with an Escape Clause and Lessons from the Gold Standard

  Staff Working Paper 2008-27 Paul Masson, Malik Shukayev

  Like the gold standard, price level targeting (PT) involves not letting past deviations of inflation be bygones; both regimes return the price level (or price of gold) to its target. The experience of suspension of the gold standard in World War I, resumption in the 1920s (for some countries at a different parity), and final abandonment is reviewed.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Credibility, Monetary policy framework JEL Code(s): E, E3, E31, E5, E52

• A Structural VAR Approach to Core Inflation in Canada

  Staff Discussion Paper 2008-10 Sylvain Martel

  The author constructs a measure of core inflation using a structural vector autoregression containing oil-price growth, output growth, and inflation. This "macro-founded" measure of inflation forecasts total inflation at least as well as other, atheoretical measures.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff discussion papers Topic(s): Inflation and prices JEL Code(s): C, C5, C53, E, E3, E31

• On the Amplification Role of Collateral Constraints

  Staff Working Paper 2008-23 Caterina Mendicino

  Following the seminal contribution of Kiyotaki and Moore (1997), the role of collateral constraints for business cycle fluctuations has been highlighted by several authors and collateralized debt is becoming a popular feature of business cycle models.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Business fluctuations and cycles, Credit and credit aggregates JEL Code(s): E, E2, E20, E3, E32