Abstract:
In this paper we evaluate inflation persistence in the U.S. using long range monthly
and annual data. The importance of inflation persistence is crucial to policy
authorities and market participants, since the level of inflation persistence provides an
indication on the susceptibility of the economy to exogenous shocks. Departing from
classic econometric approaches found in the relevant literature, we evaluate
persistence through the nonparametric Hurst exponent within both a global and a
rolling window framework. Moreover, we expand our analysis to detect the potential
existence of chaos in the data generating process, in order to enhance the robustness
of conclusions. Overall, we find that inflation persistence is high from 1775 to 2013
for the annual dataset and from February 1876 to May 2014 in monthly frequency,
respectively. Especially from the monthly dataset, the rolling window approach
allows us to derive that inflation persistence has reached to historically high levels in
the post Bretton Woods period and remained there ever since.
