The Macroeconomic Effects of Positive Trend Inflation in a Small Open Economy

Abstract

The existing New Keynesian open economy literature tends to make the simplifying assumption that there is no trend inflation. In this paper, we reformulate the standard open economy model to account for positive trend inflation. We then employ the model to understand the effects of macroeconomic shocks in a small open economy when trend inflation is positive. Our main finding is that allowing for trend inflation significantly affects the dynamics of the model through real exchange rate dynamics rather than the slope of the New Keynesian Philips Curve. Specifically, higher trend inflation induces modestly more persistent real exchange rates’ responses to the shocks. Further incorporation of trend inflation in an open economy enables us to discuss the Purchasing Power Parity and Delayed Overshooting Puzzles.