Short-Term Dynamics of Inflation and Financial Markets

This book consists of three chapters on short-term inflation dynamics and the impact of financial markets on the real economy. The first chapter offers a DSGE model that incorporates intermediate goods and a positive inflation trend to analyze the sources of short-term inflation dynamics. We develop a general New Keynesian Phillips Curve (NKPC) formulation where inflation is a function of real marginal costs and expected future inflation. We show that both ingredients are necessary to explain inflation persistence. However, under plausible values of trend inflation, intermediate goods play a more significant role shaping inflation persistence than trend inflation. In the second chapter, we simulate a DSGE model with intermediate goods, positive trend inflation and some real frictions. Our previous findings are confirmed. Intermediate goods provide a better explanation of the empirical evidence on inflation persistence. The third chapter explores the interconnections between financial markets and the real economy. Our DSGE framework with households interventions on financial markets through the CAPM model is successful in reproducing most of the salient features of the U.S. economy.