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Working Paper

Finding a Stable Phillips Curve Relationship: A Persistence-Dependent Regression Model

We establish that the Phillips curve is persistence-dependent: inflation responds differently to persistent versus moderately persistent (or versus transient) fluctuations in the unemployment gap. Previous work fails to model this dependence, so it finds numerous “inflation puzzles”—such as missing inflation/disinflation—noted in the literature. Our model specification eliminates these puzzles; for example, the Phillips curve has not weakened, and inflation is not “stubbornly low” at present. The model’s coefficients are stable, and it provides accurate conditional recursive forecasts through the Great Recession. The persistence-dependent relationship we uncover is interpretable as being business-cycle-phase-dependent and is thus consistent with existing theory.

Working Papers of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland are preliminary materials circulated to stimulate discussion and critical comment on research in progress. They may not have been subject to the formal editorial review accorded official Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland publications. The views expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not represent the views of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland or the Federal Reserve System.


Suggested Citation

Ashley, Richard, and Randal J. Verbrugge. 2020. “Finding a Stable Phillips Curve Relationship: A Persistence-Dependent Regression Model.” Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, Working Paper No. 19-09R. https://doi.org/10.26509/frbc-wp-201909r