First Quarter 1996
Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas

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Do Wages Help Predict Inflation?
Kenneth M. Emery and Chih-Ping Chang

In the financial press, productivity-related wages are often cited as an inflation indicator. For example, recently slow rates of wage growth have been noted as a factor that will keep inflation rates low in the future. While inflation and wage growth do appear to be highly correlated over longer time periods, it is not clear whether movements in wage growth precede movements in inflation, thereby providing predictive content for future inflation. In this article, Kenneth Emery and Chih-Ping Chang examine the usefulness of wage growth as a predictor of inflation, as well as carry out a stability analysis of the relationship underlying inflation and wages. The results caution against using wage growth as a signal of future inflation in that wage growth has no information content for future inflation. Furthermore, the bivariate relationship between inflation and wage growth is shown to be unstable.

Supply Shocks and the Distribution of Price Changes
Nathan S. Balke and Mark A. Wynne

Since the early 1970s, economists have gained an increased appreciation for the importance of supply shocks as sources of fluctuations in aggregate economic activity. Yet the question of how best to measure such shocks remains open. Traditionally, economists have assessed the importance of such shocks by looking at such things as the relative prices of oil or agricultural commodities. Recently, however, it has been suggested that changes in the distribution of price changes for individual commodities may, in fact, be a superior indicator of changes in aggregate supply conditions. In this article, Nathan Balke and Mark Wynne assess this argument in the context of a very simple but well-known model of the aggregate economy. They show that fluctuations in the rate of technological progress across sectors are indeed reflected in the cross-section distribution of prices, lending support to the idea that this may be a superior measure of supply shocks. However, Balke and Wynne raise questions about the interpretation of the relationship between changes in the distribution of price changes for individual commodities and aggregate inflation as evidence of price stickiness.

Policy Priorities and the Mexican Exchange Rate Crisis
William C. Gruben

Mexico's December 1994 devaluation and subsequent financial crisis came as a surprise even to some analysts who focus on Latin American financial markets. This article outlines the events leading up to the devaluation and discusses the tension that mounted throughout 1994 between policies to address growing banking-sector problems in Mexico, the policies designed to preserve the nation's exchange rate regime, and the pressures induced by rising U.S. interest rates. The article concludes that-while each difficulty impeded the resolution of the other-the explosive nature of the ensuing crisis may have reflected a third complication, the term structure of dollar-indexed debt.