The Eisner Puzzle, the Unemployment Threshold and the Range of Equilibria

Jeanette Lye and Ian McDonald ()

International Advances in Economic Research, 2008, vol. 14, issue 2, 125-141

Abstract: Using a two-regime model of the inflation-unemployment process for US data 1960:2 to 2000:2, this paper finds strong evidence to support the Eisner puzzle, which occurs when the short-run Phillips curve (SRPC) is flatter at low rates of unemployment than at higher rates. The puzzling aspect of this pattern is the expectation of excess demand to become apparent at very low rates of unemployment causing the SRPC to be steep rather than fairly flat. We show the puzzle can be resolved by estimating a three-regime model which reveals a steep SRPC at very low rates of unemployment. The estimates of the three regime model also reveal a horizontal SRPC at intermediate rates of unemployment, implying the existence of a range of equilibrium rates of unemployment at those intermediate rates. Copyright International Atlantic Economic Society 2008

Keywords: Eisner puzzle; Range of equilibria; Inflation; Unemployment; Natural rate; E00 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2008
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s11294-008-9149-8 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

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:kap:iaecre:v:14:y:2008:i:2:p:125-141:10.1007/s11294-008-9149-8

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/11294

DOI: 10.1007/s11294-008-9149-8

Access Statistics for this article

International Advances in Economic Research is currently edited by Katherine S. Virgo

More articles in International Advances in Economic Research from Springer, International Atlantic Economic Society Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().