Publication:
Price-Level Convergence in the Eurozone

Loading...
Thumbnail Image
Official URL
Full text at PDC
Publication Date
2015
Advisors (or tutors)
Editors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Citations
Google Scholar
Research Projects
Organizational Units
Journal Issue
Abstract
This paper shows that price level trends in many of the EMU countries evolve with different patterns and that these patterns will not converge in the long-run. We propose that the hypothesis of price convergence should be evaluated and tested employing the relative prices. To this aim, we: (i) define the asymptotic price level convergence in mean and variance, (ii) provide a model for relative price levels that includes a transition path, and (iii) show how to properly test the definitions stated. Our results show that only French and German price levels converge in mean to a zero gap in the EMU while some others, not many, converge to a nonzero significant gap. This should be a matter of concern for the European monetary policy makers as it implies that the monetary policy does not affect all the EMU members equally.
Description
Keywords
Citation
Alvarez, F. and Dixit, A. (2014). A real options perspective on the future of the euro. Journal of Monetary Economics, 61:78–109. Berk, J. M. and Swank, J. (2002). Regional Price Adjustment in a Monetary Union. Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 02-077/2, Tinbergen Institute. Bernard, A. B. and Durlauf, S. N. (1995). Convergence in international output. Journal of Applied Econometrics, 10:97–108. Bernard, A. B. and Durlauf, S. N. (1996). Interpreting tests of the convergence hypothesis. Journal of Econometrics, 71:161–173. Beveridge, S. and Nelson, C. R. (1981). A new approach to decomposition of economic time series into permanent and transitory components with particular attention to measurement of the ‘business cycle’. Journal of Monetary economics, 7(2):151–174. Breusch, T. and Pagan, A. (1979). A simple test for heteroscedasticity and random coefficient variation. Econometrica, 47(5):1287–1294. Bronfenbrenner, M. and Holzman, F. D. (1963). Survey of inflation theory. The American Economic Review, 53(4):pp. 593–661. Busetti, F., Fabiani, S., and Harvey, A. (2006). Convergence of prices and rates of inflation. Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, 68:863–877. Busetti, F., Forni, S., Harvey, A., and Venditti, F. (2007). Inflation convergence and divergence whithin the european monetary union. International Journal od Central Banking, 3(2):95–121. Cecchetti, S. G., Mark, N. C., and Sonora, R. J. (2002). Price index convergence among United States cities. International Economic Review, 43(4):1081–1099. Cogley, T., Primiceri, G. E., and Sargent, T. J. (2010). Inflation-gap persistence in the us. American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, 2(1):43–69. Cogley, T. and Sbordone, A. M. (2008). Trend inflation, indexation, and inflation persistence in the new keynesian phillips curve. American Economic Review, 98(5):2101–26. Dornbusch, R. (1987). Purchasing Power Parity. volume 3. Macmillan. Draghi, M. (2014). Stability and prosperity in monetary union. Speech by Mario Draghi President of the European Central Bank, at the University of Helsinki, Helsinki, 27 November 2014. Duisenberg, W. F. (2000). Are different price developments in the euro area cause of concern. Speech by Dr. William F. Duisemberg President of the European Central Bank, at the Financial Services Industry Association, Dublin, 6 September 2000. Durlauf, S. N. and Quah, D. T. (1999). The new empirics of economic growth. In Taylor, J. B. and Woodford, M., editors, Handbook of Macroeconomics, volume 1 of Handbook of Macroeconomics, chapter 4, pages 235–308. Elsevier. Engel, C. and Rogers, J. H. (2004). European product market integration after the euro. Economic Policy, 19(39):347–384. Friedman, M. (1963). Inflation: Causes and Consequences. Council for Economic Education (Bombay: Asia Publishing House, 1963), reprinted in Dollars and and Deficits (Englewood CLiffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1968), pp. 21–71. Ireland, P. N. (2007). Changes in the federal reserve’s inflation target: causes and consequences. Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, 39(8):1851–1882. Laidler, D. E. W. and Parkin, J. M. (1975). Inflation: A survey. Economic Journal, 85(340):741–809. Ljung, G. M. and Box, G. E. P. (1978). On a measure of lack of fit in time series models. Biometrika, 65:297–303. Lopez, C. and Papell, D. H. (2012). Convergence of euro area inflation rates. Journal of International Money and Finance, 31(6):1440–1458. Rogers, J. H. (2007). Monetary union, price level convergence, and inflation: How close is Europe to the USA? Journal of Monetary Economics, 54(3):785–796. Saikkonen, P. and Lutkepohl, H. (2002). Testing for a unit root in a time series with a level shift at unknown time. Econometric Theory, 18:313–348. Shin, D. and Fuller, W. (1998). Unit-root tests based on unconditional maximum likelihood estimation for the autoregressive moving average. Journal of Time Series Analysis, 19:591–599. Stock, J. H. and Watson, M. W. (2007). Why Has U.S. Inflation Become Harder to Forecast? Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, 39(s1):3–33. Weber, H. (2012). The Optimal Inflation Rate and Firm-Level Productivity Growth. Kiel Working Papers 1773, Kiel Institute for the World Economy.