Inflation Expectations Modeling: The Application of Markov Switching Autoregression

Abstract

The shift of the monetary policy framework in Ukraine has led to the transformation of the power of the key transmission channels. Inflation targeting (IT) assumes the interest rates channel as the main one; besides that, since the exchange rate is floating, the influence from the key policy rate change on it is stronger and more effective. Implementation of the IT at the end of 2016 significantly affected the prices; in particular, the inflation has slowed down from almost 60 % in the corresponding month of the previous year to 2.3 % in 2020. Specifically, the interaction between the key policy rate, which is the main monetary policy instrument under the IT, consumer prices, and economic growth has changed. One of the important channels is the inflation expectations channel that became influential after IT has started. Consequently, the article is aimed to investigate how inflation expectations are dependent on the inflation dynamics, the key policy rate changes, and the index of the real wage fluctuations applying Markov switching autoregression model with two regimes, which is widely used to estimate the effects of economic crisis, break of the trend, and instability. The developed model consists of two equations, one of which defines a regime with the high volatility, and the other with the low. The obtained results show the dominance of the high volatility regime during almost all the research period because of essential inflation uncertainty and the overall unstable situation in the country caused by the crisis. Additionally, probability to stay in the first regime is much higher than in the second and is equal to 91 %. Outcomes from the modelling allow to judge about the future inflation and inflation expectations dynamics based on discovered new features. The further steps in the evaluation of effects of monetary policy regimes shift are expansion of the model to three-or four-regime switch (high, low, moderate volatility, etc.), the use of additional independent variables, experiments with the key policy rate, and inflation as dependent variables.