The Unemployment-Inflation Trade-off Revisited : The Phillips Curve in COVID Times

We estimate the natural rate of unemployment, often referred to as u*, in the United States using data on labor market flows, short-term and long-term inflation expectations and a forward-looking New-Keynesian Phillips curve for the 1960-2021 period. The natural rate of unemployment was at around 4.5% before the onset of the pandemic and increased to 5.9% by the end of 2021. This pronounced rise was primarily informed by strong wage growth rather than changes in inflation expectations. Despite the rise in the natural rate of unemployment, the secular trend of unemployment continued to fall and stands at around 4.2% reflecting ongoing secular developments which have been pushing down the unemployment rate over the last 30 years. Our model forecasts strong wage growth to moderate only sluggishly continuing to put upward pressure on inflation in the medium-run. We project underlying inflation to remain 0.5 percentage points above its long-run trend by the end of 2023 even if long-run inflation expectations remain well anchored