Reconsidering the natural rate hypothesis

Robert Calvert Jump and Engelbert Stockhammer

No 45-2019, FMM Working Paper from IMK at the Hans Boeckler Foundation, Macroeconomic Policy Institute

Abstract: The natural rate hypothesis states that there exists an unemployment rate at which inflation is stable, and that this unemployment rate is independent of aggregate demand shocks. The hysteresis hypothesis, in contrast, states that the long run unemployment rate can be affected by aggregate demand shocks. While policy makers have warned of the risk of hysteresis since the 2008 financial crash, hysteresis effects are not incorporated into the macroeconometric models used by policy making institutions. This paper presents Bayesian estimates of hysteresis effects using unobserved components models of the type used by the European Commission and OECD. We demonstrate that the posterior probability of the natural rate hypothesis holding in Germany, France, and the UK is very low, lending empirical support to the hysteresis hypothesis. We suggest that the models used by the European Commission and OECD should be amended to reflect policy makers' views on hysteresis.

Keywords: Unemployment; Hysteresis; NAIRU; Business Cycles (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E24 E60 E61 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 30 pages
Date: 2019
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eec, nep-mac and nep-pke
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.boeckler.de/pdf/p_fmm_imk_wp_45_2019.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:imk:fmmpap:45-2019

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in FMM Working Paper from IMK at the Hans Boeckler Foundation, Macroeconomic Policy Institute Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sabine Nemitz ().