What caused the post-pandemic inflation in France? An analysis using the Bernanke–Blanchard model

Pierre Aldama, Hervé Le Bihan and Claire Le Gall

Journal of Macroeconomics, 2025, vol. 85, issue C

Abstract: We analyse post-pandemic inflation in France using the Bernanke–Blanchard semi-structural model of wage and price inflation. This model builds on a wage Phillips curve, a mark-up price-setting equation and adaptive equations for short- and long-run inflation expectations. Wage and price inflation as well as inflation expectations are modelled as functions of a labour market slack indicator (the vacancies-to-unemployed ratio), energy and food price shocks, a measure of supply-chain disruptions (“shortages”) and other exogenous factors (trend productivity, Covid lockdowns/re-openings). We estimate the model from the 1990s to 2023Q2 and derive impulse response functions and historical decomposition of endogenous variables during the pandemic era. As BB for the US, we find that the main driver of the post-pandemic inflation was the energy price shocks at first, followed by the food price shocks. Labour market conditions initially played a minor role in inflation, although the substantial increase in wage inflation observed between 2021Q4 and 2023Q2 can be attributed predominantly to the tightening of the labour market.

Keywords: Prices; Inflation; Wages; Inflation Expectations; Phillips Curve (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0164070425000357
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

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:eee:jmacro:v:85:y:2025:i:c:s0164070425000357

DOI: 10.1016/j.jmacro.2025.103699

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Macroeconomics is currently edited by Douglas McMillin and Theodore Palivos

More articles in Journal of Macroeconomics from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().