ÉXITO DE LOS BANCOS CENTRALES EN DISMINUIR LA INFLACION THE WORLD ECONOMY Heroes of the zeroes Oct 18th 2007 From The Economist print edition Central bankers are acclaimed for their part in taming inflation. They deserve to be Flattening and flattering In the late 1960s, however, the Phillips curve suffered devastating assaults—first from theory, then from fact. Separately, two American economists, Milton Friedman and Edmund Phelps (who both later picked up Nobel prizes, partly for this work), pointed out that the trade-off was only temporary. In his version, Friedman coined the idea of the “natural” rate of unemployment—the rate that the economy would come up with if left to itself. Now economists are likelier to refer to the NAIRU (non-accelerating inflation rate of unemployment), the rate at which inflation remains constant. Suppose that at first unemployment is at the NAIRU, u* in chart 3, and inflation is at p0. Policymakers want to reduce unemployment, so they loosen monetary policy: that stimulates spending, so that unemployment goes down, to u1. Inflation rises to p1, along the initial short-run Phillips curve, PC1. But that raises inflationary expectations, so that workers demand higher wage increases and real wages rise again. Firms shed labour, returning unemployment to u*, but with a higher inflation rate, p1. The new short-run trade-off is worse, with higher inflation for any level of unemployment (PC2). In the long run the Phillips curve is vertical (LRPC). Remarkably, Mr Friedman and Mr Phelps made their criticisms before they were vindicated by the facts. But the facts were not long in coming. As inflation and unemployment rose in the late 1960s and 1970s, the curve steepened, or even sloped upwards (see chart 4, left-hand panel). Robert Lucas, another eventual Nobel laureate, took the theoretical assault a stage further. The Phillips curve, said Mr Lucas, was a mere statistical regularity—a “reduced-form” relationship. It had no basis in theories about the behaviour of workers and firms. If workers and firms understood how the economy worked and thus could anticipate the effects of changes in policy, their behaviour would alter accordingly. Even in the short run, the curve would be mainly vertical. All this left the Phillips curve in theoretical and empirical tatters. Thirty years on, however, both theory and fact have changed. The original Phillips curve, the observed trade-off between inflation and unemployment, has changed yet again. It is no longer steepening, as it was in the 1970s, but has been flattening. In the 1990s and early 2000s, as unemployment came down, inflation did not take off (chart 4, right-hand panel). Why is the curve so much flatter? If you look at a Phillips curve for the 1990s and 2000s, all it really tells you is that inflation has become more or less constant. Because this has lasted for several years and because inflation depends ultimately on monetary policy, central banks can claim credit for this. They have won credibility, anchoring inflation expectations so that movements in actual inflation are damped. Because expectations are so central to inflation, communication has become an increasingly important part of monetary policy. Getting the message across depends as much on what central bankers say as on what they do (see article).   There is a theoretical argument to explain how expectations anchor inflation. A surprise increase in demand should lead firms to raise prices by less if they expect inflation to be low. That should translate into a flatter relationship between unemployment and inflation. Furthermore, some models predict that when inflation is low, firms reset prices less often. If central banks have managed to anchor inflation expectations at low levels, a bigger part of any expansion in demand should be transmitted into higher output and employment and less into inflation than in the 1970s. According to Charles Bean, the Bank of England's chief economist, the flattening Phillips curve is evidence of the power of monetary policy to keep a lid on inflation. If the public expects inflation to remain low and stable, central banks have a little more margin for error—so that even if policy is somewhat looser than it should be, inflation is less likely to take off. Columbia University's Michael Woodford puts it even more strongly. “Not only do expectations about policy matter,” he writes, “but, at least under current conditions, very little else matters.” The flattening Phillips curve is not the only evidence of central banks' success in taming inflation. Inflation has also become much less persistent, in that a change in inflation dies away more quickly. According to Frederic Mishkin, a Fed governor, changes in American inflation in earlier decades were almost permanent, but since the late 1990s they have become relatively short-lived. Research in the euro area suggests that inflation has become less persistent there too, although it is more durable than in America. Remarkably, Mr Friedman and Mr Phelps made their criticisms before they were vindicated by the facts. But the facts were not long in coming. As inflation and unemployment rose in the late 1960s and 1970s, the curve steepened, or even sloped upwards (see chart 4, left-hand panel). Robert Lucas, another eventual Nobel laureate, took the theoretical assault a stage further. The Phillips curve, said Mr Lucas, was a mere statistical regularity—a “reduced-form” relationship. It had no basis in theories about the behaviour of workers and firms. If workers and firms understood how the economy worked and thus could anticipate the effects of changes in policy, their behaviour would alter accordingly. Even in the short run, the curve would be mainly vertical. All this left the Phillips curve in theoretical and empirical tatters. Thirty years on, however, both theory and fact have changed. The original Phillips curve, the observed trade-off between inflation and unemployment, has changed yet again. It is no longer steepening, as it was in the 1970s, but has been flattening. In the 1990s and early 2000s, as unemployment came down, inflation did not take off (chart 4, right-hand panel). Why is the curve so much flatter? If you look at a Phillips curve for the 1990s and 2000s, all it really tells you is that inflation has become more or less constant. Because this has lasted for several years and because inflation depends ultimately on monetary policy, central banks can claim credit for this. They have won credibility, anchoring inflation expectations so that movements in actual inflation are damped. Because expectations are so central to inflation, communication has become an increasingly important part of monetary policy. Getting the message across depends as much on what central bankers say as on what they do (see article). There is a theoretical argument to explain how expectations anchor inflation. A surprise increase in demand should lead firms to raise prices by less if they expect inflation to be low. That should translate into a flatter relationship between unemployment and inflation. Furthermore, some models predict that when inflation is low, firms reset prices less often. If central banks have managed to anchor inflation expectations at low levels, a bigger part of any expansion in demand should be transmitted into higher output and employment and less into inflation than in the 1970s. According to Charles Bean, the Bank of England's chief economist, the flattening Phillips curve is evidence of the power of monetary policy to keep a lid on inflation. If the public expects inflation to remain low and stable, central banks have a little more margin for error—so that even if policy is somewhat looser than it should be, inflation is less likely to take off. Columbia University's Michael Woodford puts it even more strongly. “Not only do expectations about policy matter,” he writes, “but, at least under current conditions, very little else matters.” The flattening Phillips curve is not the only evidence of central banks' success in taming inflation. Inflation has also become much less persistent, in that a change in inflation dies away more quickly. According to Frederic Mishkin, a Fed governor, changes in American inflation in earlier decades were almost permanent, but since the late 1990s they have become relatively short-lived. Research in the euro area suggests that inflation has become less persistent there too, although it is more durable than in America. http://www.economist.com/surveys/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9972475

 

d. Los dos pilares de la estrategia de la política monetaria del BCE.

1. El objetivo principal del BCE: la estabilidad de precios.
2. El marco estratégico de la política monetaria

• El enfoque monetario de la inflación

• El enfoque real de la inflación

4. Primer pilar: El dinero

• Evidencia empírica sobre oferta monetaria y evolución futura de los precios

• El valor de referencia del crecimiento monetario (Conferencia  prensa  mensual del Prt  BCE y BMBCE)

• El valor de referencia no es un objetivo monetario intermedio

4. Segundo pilar: Otros indicadores

• Origen de las perturbaciones económicas

• Indicadores económicos

 

CRECIMIENTO MONETARIO E INFLACIÓN EN LA EUROZONA (fuente bce) El gráfico muestra inflación y crecimiento monetario en la Eurozona  de 1982 a 2006  utilizando tasas de crecimeinto calculadas sobre los mismos 2 , 4 y 8 periodos.