The Phillips Curve : The Epitome Of Antiquity Essay

The Federal Reserve has the dual job of ensuring price stability and maximum employment, which are contradictory objectives. The Feds try to achieve the goals through monetary policy which determines the demand and supply of money by controlling interest rates. The Fed’s goal is to achieve a natural rate of unemployment of more or less 5%. When the actual unemployment figures are below the natural rate of unemployment, inflation increases and there is a high demand of goods and services propelling the economy with the ensuing labor demands and the pressure it places on wages, which in turn produces inflation. When the Fed is faced with this scenario, it must increase the rates to slow the growth and achieve price stability (contractionary cycle).

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QE3 began in September of 2012 with a gross domestic product increasing by 4.5%, which is an impressive gain over the previous years of very little growth, GDP currently, has had a relatively steady increase over each quarter amounting to 3.9% for the most recent data. However, while GDP is of serious concern, inflation and unemployment rates have not been so easily persuaded. According the Bureau of Labor Statistics (1), in September 2013 unemployment was in a downswing but still resided at 7.2%, much higher than the Feds target rate of 5%. Currently unemployment is at 5.8% which is within the realm of the Fed’s goal. Inflation has

Another version of this theory maintains that the optimal rate of inflation is the actual rate. For example, if an economy currently has a 6-percent inflation rate, 6 percent is the optimal rate. The inflation itself does not matter and in the long run the Phillips curve is vertical but, lowering the equilibrium rate of inflation results in lower output. It is costly to lower inflation because economic agents have inflation expectations, which are difficult to adjust. A period of higher unemployment results from getting agents to lower expectations and this implies lost output. Since there is no benefit to reducing inflation, the implication is evident - the Fed should stick with the actual rate.

The discussion of whether the Federal Reserve should raise the federal funds rate is a highly contentious one. Members of the Federal Reserve (“Fed”) and academic economists disagree about what constitutes appropriate future macroeconomic policy for the Unites States. In the past, the Fed had been able to raise rates when the unemployment rate was under 5% and inflation was at a target of 2%. Enigmatically, since the Great Recession and despite a strengthening economy, year-over-year total inflation since 2008 has averaged only 1.4%—as measured by the Personal Consumption Expenditures Price Index (“PCE”). Today, PCE inflation is at 1-1.5% and has continuously undershot the Fed’s inflation target of 2% three years in a row. (Evan 2015) In the six years since the bottom of the Great Recession the U.S. economy has made great strides in lowering the published unemployment rate from about 10% back down to about 5.5%. In light of this data, certain individuals believe that the Federal Reserve should move to increase the federal funds rate in 2015 because unemployment is near 5% and inflation should bounce back on its own (Derby 2015). However, this recommendation is misguided.

The Federal reserve needs to increase interest rates in the next year in order to reduce inflation. With low unemployment, the government is placing strain on the economy by lowering taxes and increasing spending. When the economy reaches its maximum output, prices increase while output remains the same. This could be what is happening now, with economic overheating on the horizon. However, the Federal Reserve could stifle this inflation by hiking interest rates over the next year. This would decrease the money supply and thus reduce inflation to its targeted level. It would also provide some leverage for the Fed to lower rates in the case of a recession.

Contractionary monetary policies lead to a leftward shift in the aggregate demand curve. This tells you an increase in interest rates will cause a leftward shift in Aggregate demand, which leads to price level and output decreasing. Since price level is decreasing employment, which is directly related to price level, is decreasing also. In addition, this means unemployment will rise and inflation will fall. These changes are represented on the aggregate demand and Supply curve (Graph 8) and the Phillips curve when the leftward shift in AD because a movement along the Phillips curve (Graph

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Galbraith mentions that the United States has not experienced wage-led inflation since the 1950s, while the main factors that accelerated inflation were oil production, or dollar devaluation. Another interesting question is bought up “Why are no general equilibrium theorists proposing the NAIROP (natural rate of oil production) or the NAIRODD (natural rate of dollar devaluation). According to the old Phillips curve model, if real wage has been stable or falling, can we conclude that the economy has always been above the NAIRU, and the inflation rate should have been falling as a result? (But it actually did not, because of other mentioned

At the height of the Phillips curve’s popularity as a guide to policy, Edmund Phelps and Milton Friedman independently challenged its theoretical underpinnings. They argued that well-informed, rational employers and workers would pay attention only to real wages—the inflation-adjusted purchasing power of money wages. In their view, real wages would adjust to make the supply of labor equal to the demand for labor, and the unemployment rate would then stand at a level uniquely associated with that real wage—the “natural rate” of unemployment.

The unemployment rate in the United States has improved dramatically over the last two years, from a high of 8.3% in July 2012, to a low of 6.6% in January 2014. In October of 2012, the civilian labor force increased from 578,000 to 155.6 million, labor force participation increased up to 63.8%, and total employment overall rose by 410,000! Since then, the unemployment rate has been falling at a stable rate due to a political push from Washington DC and new employment initiatives. The inflation rate over the last 2 years has been relatively stably, with a few major increases and decreases in 2012 and 2013. It reached a high of 2.3% in June of 2012, and reached a low of 1.0% at the end of 2013. The federal interest rate has remained at a constant .25% over the past few years.

When looking from both side of the Keynesians and Monetarist argument, we notice that both sides are correct in different terms. How unemployment is resolved in a labor market is opposed on the Keynesian side. While the Monetarist looked at the quantity of money, which should be increasing at a constant rate. The Monetarist reduce the money supply, which reduces the spending’s and increases the unemployment rate.

When discussing information that is important to the topic of Macroeconomics, it is easy to understand what are the key topics and elements that play a vital role in the functioning of economics. A few of those very important topics are inflation and employment. Both characteristics have a huge part in economics as a whole. The current article that I found regarding these two important parts of economics is the current FAQs article titled “How does monetary policy influence inflation and employment?” As the title clearly states, this article answers the question of how exactly the monetary policy influences inflation and employment.

The unemployment rate is also affected by monetary policy. “Unemployment that is above the natural rate involves great economic and social costs.” (McConnell & Brue, 2004). GDP GAP and OKun’s Law. McConnell and Brue define this as “when the economy fails to create enough jobs for all who are able and willing to work, potential production of goods and services

Unemployment and inflation are factors that have negative effects on the performance of the economy as a whole. Therefore, policies to achieve low and stable price inflation, a high and stable level of employment are big macroeconomics issues of our time. This essay focuses on discussing the role of government policy on reducing unemployment and inflation in relation to Keynesian and Monetarist approaches, including examples of impacts of expansionary fiscal and monetary policies on New Zealand economy.