We give an appraisal of the New Keynesian Phillips curve (NPCM) as an empirical model of European inflation. The favourable evidence for NPCMs on euro-area data reported in earlier studies is shown to depend on specific choices made about estimation methodology. The NPCM can be re-interpreted as a highly restricted equilibrium correction model. We also report the outcome of tests based on variable addition and encompassing of existing models. The results show that economists should not accept the NPCM too readily.

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After a forecast failure, a respecification is usually necessary to account for the data ex post, in which case there is a gain in knowledge as a result of the forecast failure. Using Norwegian consumption as an example, we show that the financial deregulation in the mid-1980s led to forecast failure both for consumption functions (CFs) and Euler equations (EEs). We argue in the paper that such forecast failures would appear to be at odds with an underlying DGP belonging to the class of EEs, a result that also explains why progress took the form of a respecified CF where wealth plays a central role. That model is updated and is shown to have constant parameters despite huge changes in the income to wealth ratio over nine years of new data.

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