The paper presents an incomplete competition model (ICM), where inflation is determined jointly with unit labour cost growth. The ICM is estimated on data for the Euro area and evaluated against existing models, i.e. the implicit inflation equation of the Area Wide model (AWM) - cf. Fagan, Henry...

Empirical models of inflation often incorporate equilibrium correction effects based upon levels of prices and input costs. Such models assume that the steady-state price-cost markup is constant, but recent research suggests that this may not be true for the Euro area economy, which has...