Understanding the dynamics of inflation has become an important challenge for both policymakers and researchers over the past decade. Empirical models linking inflation and economic activity—versions of the so-called Phillips curve—have failed to account for the behavior of inflation in many ...

A central focus of monetary policy is the underlying rate of inflation that might be expected to prevail over a horizon of one or two years. Because inflation is estimated from noisy data, the estimation of this underlying rate of inflation, which we refer to as trend inflation, requires statistical ...

In recent years, we have not seen much of a negative correlation between inflation, the time series plotted in figure 1, and measures of resource slack, based on real GDP plotted in figure 2. This flattening of the Phillips curve in many countries across the world has startled monetary policymakers. ...

The fortunes of the Phillips curve have ebbed and flowed ever since it was proposed by Phillips (1958). Although its origins are primarily as an empirical regularity, there is now a vast literature that provides more formal justification. In recent times, the Great Moderation and the modern era ...

For decades, textbooks have explained inflation behavior with Friedman (1968)’s Phillips curve: the inflation rate depends on expected inflation and the deviation of unemployment from its natural rate. Yet this theory has always been controversial, and skepticism has been rampant in the decade ...

Central bank independence is one of the most remarkable pieces of institutional architecture fostered by economic thinking in the last half century. Theoretical studies in the 1980s stressed central bank independence as a precondition to bringing inflation under lasting control, and support for reform ...

Central banks used to ask, “Shall we communicate this?” Now, as a rule, they ask, “Why wouldn’t we communicate this?” This first wave of the revolution in central-bank communication is giving rise to a second wave. The question increasingly is, “How should we communicate this in a way that engages a ...

The job of central bankers is to use the monetary powers granted to them to promote price stability, sustainable growth, and a stable financial system. They do this in an environment fraught with unavoidable uncertainties. But, in conducting policy, there is one uncertainty that policymakers can and ...

Historically, many emerging economies, particularly in Latin America, battled against persistently high and volatile inflation. Today, emerging economies continue to experience higher inflation than developed ones, and their central banks deviate more frequently from inflation targets. These patterns ...

Around the world, most central banks set policy by committee. This is motivated in part by the idea that groups reach better decisions than individuals and in part by a desire for representation of different geographical areas and economic constituencies in policymaking. The Bank for International ...