The Business Cycle, Inflation, and Unemployment Rate Nexus: An Empirical Approach

Abstract

This paper revisits the main assumption regarding the original Phillips curve regarding the American economy, in which one assumes that the unemployment rate causes an inflation rate. In this context, this paper aims to evaluate if the variance of the inflation rate affects the unemployment rate and, besides, if there is a one-way causality from the variance of the inflation rate to the unemployment rate. Based on quarterly time series from 1959:04 to 2019:04 the empirical results show, via OLS and GMM methods, that the monetary policy affects the business cycle, and, in turn, the business cycle impacts the unemployment rate. Hence, the monetary policy affects indirectly the unemployment rate via the business cycle. On the other hand, the variance of the inflation rate contributes to an increase in the unemployment rate, consequently, there isn’t a trade-off between the unemployment rate and the variance of the inflation rate. Moreover, there is a one-way causality from the variance of the inflation rate to the unemployment rate. This is the contribution of this paper. At last, based on the Phillips curve, one expects that the unemployment rate causes the inflation rate. However, the Granger causality tests display a two-way causality relation between both variables.