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Some International Evidence on Output-Inflation Tradeoffs By ROBERT Ii. LUCAS, JR.' This paper reports the results of an empirical study of real output-infiation tradeoffs, based on annual time-series from eighteen countries over the years 1951-67. These data are examined from the point of view of the hypothesis that average real output levels are invariant under changes in the time pattern of the rate of inflation, or that there exists a "natural rate" of real output. That is, we are con- cerned with the questions (i) does the natural rate theory lead to expressions of the output-inflation relationship which perform satisfactorily in an econometric sense for all, or most, of the countries in the sample, {ii) what testable restrictions does the theory impose on this relation- ship, and (iii) are these restrictions con- sistent with recent experience? Since the term "natural rate theory" refers to varied aggregation of models and verbal developments/ it may he helpful to sketch the key elements of the particular version used in this paper. The tirst essential presumption is that nominal out- put is determined on the aggregate demand side of the economy, with the division into real output and the price level largely dependent on the behavior of suppliers of labor and goods. The second is that the partial "rigidities" which dominate short- run supply behavior result from suppliers' lack of information on some of the prices relevant to their decisions. The third "Graduate School of InduBtrial Administration, Car- negie-Mellon University. ' The most useful, general sUtemenls arc those of Milton Friedman (1%K) and Edmund Pheljis. Specific illustrative examples are provided by Donald Gordon and Allan Hynes and l.ucas (April 1972), presumption is that inferences on these relevant, unobserved prices are made optimally (or '"rationally") in light of the stochastic character of the economy. As I have argued elsewhere (1972), theories developed along these lines will not place testable restrictions on the co- efficients of estimated Phillips curves or other single equation e.xpressions of the tradeoff. They will not, for example, imply that money wage changes are linked to price level changes with a unit coefficient, or that "long-run" (in the usual distrib- uted lag sense) Phillips curves must be vertical. They will (as we shall see below) link supply parameters to parameters governing the stochastic nature of demand shifts. The fact that the implications of the natural rate theory come in this form sug- gests an attempt to test it using a sample, such as the one employed in this study, in which a wide variety of aggregate demand behavior is exhibited. In the following section, a simple ag- gregative model will be constructed using the elements sketched above. Results based on this model are reported in Sec- tion 11, followed by a discussion and con- clusions. I. An Economic Model The general structure of the model de- veloped in this section may be described very simply. I-'irst, the aggregate price- quantity observations are viewed as inter- section points of an aggregate demand and an aggregate supply schedule. The former is drawn up under the assumption of a cleared money market and represents the output-price level relationship implicit in 326
Transcript
Page 1: Some International Evidence on Output-Inflation Tradeoffs · Some International Evidence on Output-Inflation Tradeoffs By ROBERT Ii. LUCAS, ... natural rate theory come in this form

Some International Evidence onOutput-Inflation Tradeoffs

By ROBERT Ii. LUCAS, JR. '

This paper reports the results of anempirical study of real output-infiationtradeoffs, based on annual time-series fromeighteen countries over the years 1951-67.These data are examined from the pointof view of the hypothesis that averagereal output levels are invariant underchanges in the time pattern of the rate ofinflation, or that there exists a "naturalrate" of real output. That is, we are con-cerned with the questions (i) does thenatural rate theory lead to expressions ofthe output-inflation relationship whichperform satisfactorily in an econometricsense for all, or most, of the countries inthe sample, {ii) what testable restrictionsdoes the theory impose on this relation-ship, and (iii) are these restrictions con-sistent with recent experience?

Since the term "natural rate theory"refers to varied aggregation of models andverbal developments/ it may he helpfulto sketch the key elements of the particularversion used in this paper. The tirstessential presumption is that nominal out-put is determined on the aggregate demandside of the economy, with the divisioninto real output and the price level largelydependent on the behavior of suppliers oflabor and goods. The second is that thepartial "rigidities" which dominate short-run supply behavior result from suppliers'lack of information on some of the pricesrelevant to their decisions. The third

"Graduate School of InduBtrial Administration, Car-negie-Mellon University.

' The most useful, general sUtemenls arc those ofMilton Friedman (1%K) and Edmund Pheljis. Specificillustrative examples are provided by Donald Gordonand Allan Hynes and l.ucas (April 1972),

presumption is that inferences on theserelevant, unobserved prices are madeoptimally (or '"rationally") in light of thestochastic character of the economy.

As I have argued elsewhere (1972),theories developed along these lines willnot place testable restrictions on the co-efficients of estimated Phillips curves orother single equation e.xpressions of thetradeoff. They will not, for example, implythat money wage changes are linked toprice level changes with a unit coefficient,or that "long-run" (in the usual distrib-uted lag sense) Phillips curves must bevertical. They will (as we shall see below)link supply parameters to parametersgoverning the stochastic nature of demandshifts. The fact that the implications of thenatural rate theory come in this form sug-gests an attempt to test it using a sample,such as the one employed in this study, inwhich a wide variety of aggregate demandbehavior is exhibited.

In the following section, a simple ag-gregative model will be constructed usingthe elements sketched above. Resultsbased on this model are reported in Sec-tion 11, followed by a discussion and con-clusions.

I. An Economic ModelThe general structure of the model de-

veloped in this section may be describedvery simply. I-'irst, the aggregate price-quantity observations are viewed as inter-section points of an aggregate demand andan aggregate supply schedule. The formeris drawn up under the assumption of acleared money market and represents theoutput-price level relationship implicit in

326

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VOL. 63 NO. 3 LUCAS: OUTPUT-INFLATION TRADEOFF Sit

the standard IS-LM diagram. It is viewedas being shifted by the usual set ofdemand-shift variables: monetary andfiscal policies and variation in export de-mands. The supply schedule is drawn un-der the assumption of a cleared labormarket; its slope therefore reflects laborand product market "rigidities."

The structure of this model, which isessentially that suggested in Lucas andLeonard Rapping (1969), wii! be greatlysimplified by an additional special assump-tion: that the aggregate demand curve isunit elastic.^ In this case, the level ofnominal output can be treated as an"exogenous" variable with respect to thegoods market, and the entire burden of ac-counting for the breakdown of nominalincome into real output and price is placedon the aggregate supply side. In the nextsubsection, A., a supply model designed toserve this purpose is developed. In subsec-tion B, solutions to the full (demand andsupply) model are obtained.

A. Aggregate Supply

All formulations of the natural ratetheory postulate rational agents, whosedecisions depend on relative prices only,placed in an economic setting in whichthey cannot distinguish relative from gen-eral price movements. Obviously, there isno limit to the number of models one canconstruct where agents are placed in thissituation of imperfect information; thetrick is to find tractable schemes with thisfeature. One such model is developedbelow.

We imagine suppliers as located in alarge number of scattered, competitivemarkets. Demand for goods in each period

' An explicit derivation of the price-output relation-ship from the IS-I.M framework Is given by FredericRaines. Of course, this framework does not imply anelasticity of unity, though it is consistent with it. Sincethe unit elasticity hypnlhesis is primarily a matter ofconvenience in the present study, I shall comment lielowon the probable consequences of relaxing it.

is distributed unevenly over markets,leading to relative as well as general pricemovements. As a consequence, the situa-tion as perceived by individual supplierswill be quite difTerent from the aggregatesituation as seen by an outside observer.Accordingly, we shall attempt to keep thesetwo points of view separate, turning firstto the situation faced by individual sup-pliers.

Quantity supplied in each market will beviewed as the product of a normal (orsecular) component common to all marketsand a cyclical component which variesfrom market to market. Letting z indexmarkets, and using y t̂ and y,.t to denotethe logs of these components, supply inmarket z is:

(1) = ynt + yrt

The secular component, reflecting capitalaccumulation and population change, fol-lows the trend line:

(2) Vnt = a + |3t

The cyclical component varies with per-ceived, relative prices and with its ownlagged value:

where Pi{z) is the actual price in z at t andE{Pt\li{z)) is the mean current, generalprice level, conditioned on informationavailable in s at t, h{z).^ Since >',t is adeviation from trend, |X| <1 .

' A supply function for labor which varies with theratio of actual to expected prices is developed and veri-fied empirically hy Lucas and Rapping (1969). Theeffect of lagged on actual employment is also shown.In our 1972 paper, in response to Albert Rees's criti-cism, we found that this persistence in employmentcannot be fully explained by price expectations behav-ior. Both these effects—an expectations and a persis-tence effect—will be transmitted by firms to the goodsmarket. In addition, they are probably augmented byspeculative behavior on the part of firms (as analyzedfor example, by Paul Taubman and Maurice Wilkinson).

For a general equilibrium model in which suppliersbehave essentially as given by (3), see my 1972 papers.

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328 THE AMERICAN ECONOMIC REVIEW JUNE 1973

The information available to suppliersin 2 at t comes from two sources. First,traders enter period t with knowledge ofthe past course of demand shifts, of normalsupply y^t, and of past deviations y,.i-i,yc.t--ii . . . . While this information doesnot permit exact inference of the log of thecurrent general price level, P,, it does de-termine a "prior" distribution on Pt, com-mon to traders in all markets. We assumethat this distribution is known to be nor-mal, with mean P^ (depending in a knownway on the above history) and a constantvariance c .̂

Second, we suppose that the actual pricedeviates from the (geometric) economy-wide average by an amount which is dis-tributed independently of Pi. Specifically,let the percentage deviation of the price in2 from the average P^ be denoted by z (sothat markets are indexed by their pricedeviations from average) where z is nor-mally distributed, independent of P,, withmean zero and variance r^ Then the ob-served price in 2, P^iz) (in logs) is the sumof independent, normal variates

(4) P.(s) = P. + z

The information /,(s) relevant for estima-tion of the unobserved (by suppliers in zat t) Pt, consists then of the observedprice P,(3) and the history summarizedin P,.

To utilize this information, suppliers use(4) to calculate the distribution of P,,conditional on P,(s) and Pf This distribu-tion is (by straightforward calculation)normal with mean:

(5)

where 5=rV(o'^+r^), and variance 6a-.Combining (1), (,?), and (5) yields thesupply function for market z:

(6)

Averaging over markets (integrating withrespect to the distribution of s) gives theaggregate supply function:

(7)yt = +

The slope of the aggregate supply func-tion (7) thus varies with the fraction 6 oftotal individual price variance, C^+T^,which is due to relative price variation. Incases where r̂ is relatively small, so thatindividual price changes are virtually cer-tain to reflect general price changes, thesupply curve is nearly vertical. At theother extreme when general prices arestable ((7̂ is relatively small) the slope ofthe supply curve approaches the limitingvalue of y}

B. Completion and Solution of the Model

A central assumption in the develop-ment above is that supply behavior isbased on the correct distribution of theunobserved current price level, Pt. Toproceed, then, it is necessary to determinewhat this correct distribution is, a stepwhich requires the completion of themodel by inclusion of an aggregate de-mand side.

As suggested earlier, this will be done bypostulating a demand function for goods ofthe form:

(8) y, + P, = .n

where :r, is an exogenous shift variable—equal to the observable log of nominalGNP. Further, let [^x^] be a sequence ofindependent, normal variates with mean 5and variance Cj.'̂

•* This predicted relationship between a supply elas-ticity and the variance of a component of the price seriesis analogous to the link between the income elasticity ofconsumption demand and the variances of permanentand transitory income components which Friedman(1957) observes. As will be seen in Section II, it worksin empirical testing in much the same way as well.

^ This particular characterization of the "shocks" tothe economy is not central to the theory, but to discuss

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VOL. 63 NO. 3 LUCAS: OUTPUT-INFLATION TRADEOFF 329

The relevant history of the economythen consists (at most) of ynt (which fixescalendar time), the demand shifts Xi,it-i, • • • , and past actual real outputsy,_i, jvt-'j, . • • • Since the model is linear inlogs, it is reasonable to conjecture a pricesolution of the form:'

(9)

dy~ a;t_i - \yt-i - (1 -e

-\-n\yi-i-\-n-iy\.----\- • • •

Then Pt will be the expectation of } \ ,based on all information except Xt (thecurrent demand level) or:

? , - Po + ffl(.V,-l -I- 5) -I- T-,.Vt_l

(10) -I- TTs-Vt-̂ + . . . -I- T)iVt-l

-h viyt--i + . . . -i- ^DVM

To solve for the unknown parametersIT,, T}j and 0̂ we first eliminate y,. between(7) and (8), or equate quantity demandedand supplied. Then inserting the rightsides of (9) and (10) in place of Ft and A,one obtains an identity in {xt], \yt], and-̂..t, which is then used to obtain the

parameter values. The resulting solutionsfor price and output are:''

Ft =+

rational expectations formation at all, some explicitstochastic description is clearly required. Independenceis used here partly for simplicity, partly because it isempirically roughly accurate for most countries in thesample. The effect of autocorrelation in the shockswould, as can be easily traced out, be to add higher orderlag terms to the solutions found below.

' This solution method is adapted from Lucas (1972),which is in turn based on the ideas of John Muth.

' If a demand function of the form yt^^^Pi + Xt hadbeen used, these solutions would assume the same form,with different expressions for the coefficients. If JF^I,however, xi is an unobserved shock, unequal in generalto observed nominal income. In this case, the model stillpredicts the time series structure (moments and laggedmoments) of the series .Vn and APi and is thus, in princi-ple, testable. I have found empirical experimentingalong these lines suggestive, but the series used aresimply too short to yield results of any reliability.

dyb ByVt = -

t-i + (1 -

In terms of A/'t and >Vt, and lettingthe solutions are:

(11) yn = - vh -

(12) APt = - ^ + (1 - T)AJt +

Let us review these solutions for internalconsistency. Evidently, Ft is normally dis-tributed about ?,. The conditional vari-ance of A will have the constant (asassumed) variance 1/(1+67)V,. Thusthose features of the behavior of priceswhich were assumed "known" by suppliersin subsection A are, in fact, true in thiseconomy.

To review, equations (11) and (12) arethe equilibrium values of the inflation rateand real output (as a percentage deviationfrom trend). They give the intersectionpoints of an aggregate demand schedule,shifted by changes in x^ and an aggregatesupply schedule shifted by variables(lagged prices) which determine expecta-tions. In order to avoid the introduction ofan additional, spurious "expectations pa-rameter," one cannot solve for this inter-section on a period-by-period basis; ac-cordingly, we have adopted a methodwhich yields equilibrium "paths" of pricesand output. Otherwise, the interpretationof (11) and (12) is entirely conventional.

Not surprisingly, the solution values ofinflation and the cyclical component ofreal output are indicated by (11) and (12)to be distributed lags of current and pastchanges in nominal output. A change in thenominal expansion rate, Ajjt, has an im-mediate effect on real output, and laggedeffects which decay geometrically. The

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THE AMERICAN ECONOMIC REVIEW JUNE 1973

immediate effect on prices is one minus thereal output effect, with the remainder ofthe impact coming in the succeeding pe-riod. We note in particular that this lagpattern may well produce periods of simul-taneous inflation and below average realoutput. Though these periods arise be-cause of supply shifts, the shifts resultfrom lagged perception of demand changes,and not from autonomous changes in thecost structure of suppliers.

In addition to these features, the modeldoes indeed assert the existence of a nat-ural rate of output: the average rate of de-mand expansion, 5, appears in (U) with acoefficient equal in magnitude to the co-efficient of the current rate, and with theopposite sign. Thus changes in the averagerate of nominal income growth will have noeffect on average real output. On the otherhand, unanticipated demand shifts dohave output effects, with magnitude givenby the parameter IT. Since this effect de-pends on "fooling" suppliers (in the senseof subsection A), one expects that ir will belarger the smaller the variance of thedemand shifts, We next develop this im-plication explicitly.

P'rom the definition of TT in terms of 6and 7, and the definition of B in terms offf^ and T̂ we have

+ 7)

Combining with the expression fortained above, this gives

ob-

(13) T'=7

7)

For fixed T̂ and 7, then, ir takes the valuey/{^-\~y) ata-i=Oand tends monotonicallyto zero as al tends to infinity.

The prediction that the average devia-tion of output from trend, E{y,i), is in-variant under demand policies is not, ofcourse, subject to test: the deviations from

a fitted trend line must average to zero.Accordingly, we must base tests of thenatural rate hypothesis (in this context)on (13): a relationship between an ob-servable variance and a slope parameter.

II. Test Results

Testing the hypothesis advanced aboveinvolves two steps. First, within eachcountry (11) and (12) should performreasonably well, In particular, under thepresumption that demand fluctuations arethe major source of variation in AP^ and>Vt, the fits should be "good." The esti-mated values of ir and X should be betweenzero and one. Finally, since (11) and (12)involve five slope parameters but only twotheoretical ones, the estimated TT and Xvalues obtained from fitting (11) shouldwork reasonably well in explaining varia-tions in A/̂ t.

The main object of this study, however,is not to "explain" output and price levelmovements within a given country, butrather to see whether the terms of theoutput-inflation "tradeoff" vary acrosscountries in the way predicted by the nat-ural rate theory. For this purpose, we shallutilize the theoretical relationship (13)and the estimated values of w and a'i.Under the assumption that T̂ and 7 arerelatively stable across countries, the esti-mated 7r values should decline as the sam-ple variance of Axi increases.

Descriptive statistics for the eighteencountries in the sample are given in Table1.* As is evident, there is no association

* The raw data on real and nominal GNP are fromYearbook of Nationd Accounts StatisHcs, where seriesfrom many countries are collected and put on a uniformbasis. The choice of countries is by no means random:the eighteen used are all the countries from which con-tinuous series are available. The sample could thus bebroadened considerably by use of sources from indi-vidual countries. To obtain the variables used in thetests, the log.i of real and nominal output, \\ and jr,, arelogs of the series in the source. The log of the price level,Pt, is the difference x,—yt; >„ is the residual from thetrend line yi = a-\-bt, fit by least squares from the sample

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VOL. 63 NO. 3 LUCAS: OUTPUT-INFLATION TRADEOFF

TABLE I^DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS, 1952-67

Country

ArgentinaAustriaBelgiumCanadaDenmarkWest GermanyGuatemalaHondurasIrelandItalyNetherlandsNorwayParaguayPuerto RicoSwedenUnited KingdomUnited StatesVenezuela

MeanAjt

.026

.048

.034

.043

.039

.056

.046

.044

.025

.053

.047

.038

.054

.058

.039

.028

.036

.060

MeanAP.

.220

.038

.021

.024

.04!

.026

.004

.012

.038

.032

.036

.034

.157

.024

.036

.034

.019

.016

Variance

.00096

.OOlfrl

.00075

.00109

.00082

.00147

.00111

.00042

.00139

.00022

.00055

.00092

.00488

.00205

.00030

.00022

.OOIO.S

.00175

VarianceAPt

.01998

.00113

.00033

.00018

.00038

.00026

.00079

.00084

.00060

.00044

.00043

.00033

.03192

.00021

.00043

.00037

.00007

.00068

VarianceAA-t

.01555

.00124

.00072

.00139

.00084

.00073

.00096

.00109

.00111

.00040

.00101

.00098

.03450

.00077

.00041

.00014

.00064

.00127

between average real growth rates andaverage rates of inflation: this fact seemsto be consistent with both the conventionaland natural rate views of the tradeoff.Since our interest is in comparing real out-put and price behavior under different timepatterns of nominal income, these statisticsare somewhat disappointing. Essentiallytwo types of nominal income behavior areobserved: the highly volatile and expansivepolicies of Argentina and Paraguay, andthe relatively smooth and moderately ex-pansive policies of the remaining sixteencountries. But if the sample provides onlytwo "points," they are indeed widelyseparated: the estimated variance of de-mand in the high inflation countries is onthe order of 10 times that in the stableprice countries.

The flrst three columns of Table 2 sum-marize the performance of equation (11)in accounting for movements in y,.f Theestimated values for ir all lie between zeroand one; with the exceptions of Argentina

period. The moments given in Table 1 are maximumlikelihood estimates based on these series. The estimatesreported in Table 2 are by ordinary least squares.

and Puerto Rico, so do the estimated Xvalues. The Rh indicate that for many, orperhaps most countries, important out-put-determining variables have been omit-ted from the model. The Rh for the infla-tion rate equation, (12), are given incolumn (4) of Table 2. In general, thesetend to be lower than for equation (11),and not surprisingly the estimated co-efficients from (12) (which are not shown)tend to behave erratically. Column (5) ofTable 2 gives the fraction of the varianceof A/*t explained by (12) when the co-efficient estimates from (11) are imposed.(A " —" indicates a negative value.)^

With respect to its performance as anintracountry model of income and pricedetermination, then, the system (11)-(12)passes the formal tests of significance. Onthe other hand, the goodness-of-flt statis-

" The loss of explanatory power when these coeffi-cients are imposed on (12) can be assessed formally byan approximate Chi-square test. By this measure, theloss is significant at the .05 level for Paraguay only. AsTable 2 shows, however, this test is somewhat decep-tive: for several countries the least squares estimates of(12} are so poor that there is little explanatory power tolose, and the test is "passed" vacuously.

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332 THE AMERICAN ECONOMIC REVIEW JUNE 1973

TABLE 2—SUMMARY STATISTICS BY COUNTRY, 1953-67

Country

Argentina

Austria

Belgium

Canada

Denmark

West Germany

Guatemala

Honduras

Ireland

Italy

Netherlands

Norway

Paraguaj-

Puerto Rico

Sweden

United Kingdom

United States

Venezuela

.011(.070).319

(.179).502

(.100).759

(.064).571

(.118).820

(.136),674

(.301).287

(,152).430

(-121).622

(.134).531

(.111),530

(.088).022

(.079).689

(-121).287

(.166).665

(.290).910

(.086).514

(.183)

X

- . 1 2 6(.258).703

(.209).741

(.093).736

(.075).679

(.110).784

(.110).695

(-274).414

(.250).858

(.111).042

(.183).571

(-149).841

(.096).742

(.201)1,029(.072).584

(.186).178

(.209).887

(.070).937

(-148)

Rl

.018

.507

.875

.936

.812

.881

.356

.274

.847

.746

.711

,893

.568

.939

,525

.394

.945

. 755

.929

.518

.772

.418

.498

.130

.016

.521

.499

.934

.627

.633

.941

.419

.648

.266

.571

.425

.914

.661

.282

.358

.192

.914

.580

.427

.751

.405

.115

.464

tics are generally considerably poorer thanwe have come to expect from annual time-series models.

In contrast to these somewhat mixed re-sults, the behavior of the estimated -ITvalues across countries is in striking con-formity with the natural rate hypothesis.For the sixteen stable price countries, #ranges from .287 to .910; for the twovolatile price countries, this estimate issmaller by a factor of 10! To illustrate thisorder-of-magnitude effect more sharply,let us examine the complete results for twocountries: the United States and Argen-

tina. For the United States, the fitted ver-sions of (11) and (12) are;

y.t = - .049 + (.910)A.v, + (.887)y.,,_i

M\ = - .028 + (.119)A.Vt + (.

The comparable results for Argentina are:

ye, = - .006 + (.011)A.Vt - (.126)3V.,_,

APt = - .047 + (1.140)Ajrt - (.083)Aa:t_i

+ (.102)Av.,t-i

In a stable price country like the UnitedStates, then, policies which increase nomi-

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VOL. 63 NO. 3 LUCAS: OUTPUT-INFLATION TRADEOFF 3S3

nal income tend to have a large initialeffect on real output, together with a small,positive initial effect on the rate of infla-tion. Thus the apparent short-term trade-off is favorable, as long as it remains un-used. In contrast, in a volatile pricecountry like Argentina, nominal incomechanges are associated with equal, con-temporaneous price movements with nodiscernible effect on real output. Theseresults are, of course, inconsistent with theexistence of even moderately stable Phillipscurves. On the other hand, they followdirectly from the view that inflationstimulates real output if, and only if, itsucceeds in "fooling" suppliers of laborand goods into thinking relative prices aremoving in their favor.

III. Concluding Remarks

The basic idea underlying the tests re-ported above is extremely simple, yet 1 amafraid it may have become obscured by therather special model in which it is cm-bodied. In this section, I shall try to re-state this idea in a way which, though notquite accurate enough to form the basis foreconometric work, conveys its essentialfeature more directly.

The propositions to be compared empiri-cally refer to the effects of aggregate de-mand policies which tend to move infla-tion rates and output (relative to trend) inthe same direction, or alternatively, un-employment and inflation in oppositedirections. The conventional Phillips curveaccount of this observed co-movement saysthat the terms of the tradeoff arise fromrelatively stable structural features of theeconomy, and are thus independent of thenature of the aggregate demand policypursued. The alternative explanation ofthe same observed tradeoff is that thepositive association of price changes andoutput arises because suppliers misinter-pret general price movements for relativeprice changes. It follows from this view,

first, that changes in average inflationrates will not increase average output, andsecondly, that the higher the variance inaverage prices, the less "favorable" will bethe observed tradeoff.

The most natural cross-national com-parison of these propositions would seemto be a direct examination of the associa-tion of average inflation rates and averageoutput, relative to "normal" or "full em-ployment." Unfortunately, there seems tobe no satisfactory way to measure normaloutput. The deviation-from-fitted-trendmethod I have used defines normal outputto be average output. The use of unem-ployment series suffers from the same diffi-culty, since one must somehow select the(obviously positive) rate to be denoted fullemployment.

Thus although the issue revolves aroundthe relation between means of inflationand output rates, it cannot be resolved byexamination of sample averages. Fortu-nately, the existence of a stable tradeoffalso implies a relationship between vari-ances of inflation and output rates, asillustrated in Figure 1. With a stabletradeoff, policies which lead to wide varia-tion in prices must also induce comparablevariation in real output. If these samplevariances do not tend to move together(and, as Table 1 shows, they do not) one

AP,Var(ye,)

Stable Prict CountryVolatil* Pric« Country

FlGURK 1

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334 THE AMERICAN ECONOMIC REVIEW JUNE 1973

can only conclude that the tradeoff tendsto fade away the more frequently it isused, or abused.

This simple argument leads to a formaltest if the output-inflation association isentirely contemporaneous. In fact, how-ever, it involves lagged effects which makea direct comparison of variances, as justsuggested, difficult in short time-series.Accordingly, it has been necessary to im-pose a specific, simple structure on thedata. As we have seen, this structure ac-counts for output and inflation rate move-ments only moderately well, but wellenough to capture the main phenomenonpredicted by the natural rate theory: thehigher the variance of demand, the moreunfavorable are the terms of the Phillipstradeoff.

REFERENCES

M. Friedman, A Theory oj the ConsumptionFunction, Princeton 1957.

, "The Role of Monetary Policy,"Amer. Econ. Rev., Mar. 1968, 58, 1-17.

D. F. Gordon and A. Hynes, "On the Theoryof Price Dynamics," in E. S. Phelps et al..Micro-economics oj Inflation and Employ-ment Theory, New York 1969.

R. E. Lucas, Jr., "Expectations and the Neu-

trality of Money," / . Econ. Theor., Apr.\912,4, 103-24.

-, "Econometric Testing of the NaturalRate Hypothesis," Conjerence on the Econ-ometrics oj Price Determination, Washing-ton 1972, S0-S9.

and L. A. Rapping, "Real Wages,Employment and the Price Level," 7. Polit.Econ., Sept./Oct. 1969, 77, 721-54.

and . "Unemployment in theGreat Depression: Is There a Full Expla-nation?", / . Polit. Econ., Jan./Feb. 1972, 80,186-91.

J. F. Muth, "Rational Expectations and theTheory of Price Movements," Economet-rica, July 1961, 29, 315-35.

E. S. Phelps, introductory chapter in E. S.Phelps et al.. Micro-economics oj Inflationand Employment Theory, New York 1969.

F. Raines, "Macroeconomic Demand and Sup-ply: an Integrative Approach," Washing-ton Univ. working paper, Apr. 1971.

A. Rees, "On Equilibrium in Labor Markets,"/ . Polit. Econ., Mar./Apr. 1970, 78, 306-10.

P. Taubman and M. Wilkinson, "User Cost,Capital Utilization and InvestmentTheory," Int. Econ. Rev., June 1970, U,209-15.

United Nations, Department of Economicand Social Affairs, United Nations Statisti-cal Office, Yearbook oj National AccountsStatistics, 66 and 68, Xew York 1958.

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