Should We Reject the Natural Rate Hypothesis?

Olivier Blanchard

No WP17-14, Working Paper Series from Peterson Institute for International Economics

Abstract: Fifty years ago, Milton Friedman articulated the natural rate hypothesis. It was composed of two sub-hypotheses: First, the natural rate of unemployment is independent of monetary policy. Second, there is no long-run tradeoff between the deviation of unemployment from the natural rate and inflation. Both propositions have been challenged. Blanchard reviews the arguments and the macro and micro evidence against each and concludes that, in each case, the evidence is suggestive but not conclusive. Policymakers should keep the natural rate hypothesis as their null hypothesis but keep an open mind and put some weight on the alternatives.

Keywords: Unemployment; Hysteresis; Inflation; Phillips Curve; Fluctuations (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E10 E2 E32 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hpe and nep-mac
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (20)

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Journal Article: Should We Reject the Natural Rate Hypothesis? (2018)
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