This document summarizes key concepts relating to output, inflation, and unemployment from chapters in an intermediate macroeconomics textbook. It discusses the original Phillips curve developed by A.W. Phillips showing the relationship between wage inflation and unemployment. It then covers Milton Friedman's natural rate theory which argues that in the long run, real variables like employment are determined by real factors, not monetary factors. The document also discusses how expectations of future inflation can shift the short-run Phillips curve and the policy implications of these concepts.

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Prof. Steve Cunningham
Intermediate Macroeconomics
ECON 219

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 A. W. Phillips (1958), “The Relation
Between Unemployment and the Rate of
Change of Money Wage Rates in the
United Kingdom, 1861-1957”, Economica.
Wage inflation vs. Unemployment
 New Zealander at London School of
Economics
 Missing Equation of Keynesian
economics?

3. 5½ % = zero inflation
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4. 4
5½ %

5. There exists a stable relationship
between the variables. The
relationship has not substantially
changed for over 100 years.
Negative, nonlinear correlation.
Wages remain stable/stationary
( =0) when unemployment is 5½%.
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 From the dispersion of the
data points, Phillips
concluded that there was a
countercyclical “loop”:
dw
– Money wages rise faster
as du/dt decreases,
faster
– Money wages fall slower
as du/dt increases
– Implies an inflationary
slower
bias, and is consistent
with sticky wage theory. u
w

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 In the long run, the influence of money is primarily on the
price level and other nominal magnitudes.
 In the long run, real variables, such as real output and
employment are determined by real, not monetary, factors.
 The equilibrium levels of real output and employment that
are consistent with the microeconomics of production and
the institutions of the society are called the natural rates of
output and employment.
 Short run levels of output and employment may vary from
the natural rates as a result of monetary factors, but in the
long run, the economy will always return to the natural
rates.

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SRPC(p2)
SRPC(p1)
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inflation
Unemployment
SRPC(p0)
Natural Rate
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2
3
4
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p2
p1

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AD1
AS1
AD2
AS2
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10. Milton Friedman. “The Role of Monetary Policy,” American Economic
Review (March 1968), 1-17.
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 Different Phillips curves exist for different inflation rates
 Changes in inflation expectations shift the short-run Phillips
curve.
 Any tradeoff from a single change in the money supply is short-run.
Any improvement in the economy due to such monetary
stimulus is brief at best, and leads to long-run inflation.
 To achieve a permanent reduction in unemployment via monetary
policy would require continuously increasing the money supply,
leading to infinite inflation, and the destruction of the economy.
(The accelerationist hypothesis.)
 To change the natural rate of output requires real sector changes.

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 Friedman had argued that the natural rate would
be related to the actual structural characteristics
of the commodity and labor markets.
– What would affect people getting information and
making adjustments to their economic positions (asking
for raises, etc.)
 Modern theory relates these characteristics to
those which determine frictional and structural
unemployment:
– Information costs and impediments to job search
– Training
 Natural rates are “time-varying” not “fixed and
permanent”.
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