中国通胀惯性特征与货币政策启示

The Nature of Inflation Inertia in China and Its Implications on Monetary Policy

通胀惯性与货币政策效果紧密相关。本文应用具有统计无偏性的"Grid Bootstrap"估计法和未知断点结构突变检验法,研究了1980—2007年中国通货膨胀的惯性特征。本文发现,在低通胀环境下通货膨胀仍然呈现相当高的惯性特征,这暗示着我国货币政策的滞后效应依然非常明显,通货膨胀对政策变化的反应速度缓慢。计量结果说明,中央银行至少应该在出现通胀压力前一年采取措施,来应对高通胀惯性环境下的政策滞后效应。因此,新时期货币当局不仅需要保持对通胀抬头趋势的适度警觉,而且应该关注高通胀惯性对政策效果的影响。

Inflation inertia is closely related to effects of monetary policy. This article employs grid-bootstrap unbiased estimator and unknown structural break test to analyze the nature of inflation inertia in China over 1980-2007. Empirical results show that inflation maintains high inertia even in the low inflation environment, which indicates that the lag effect of monetary policy in China is remarkable and the response of inflation to monetary policy change is relatively slow. The numerical results also show that the central bank should take actions at least one year prior to the emergence of inflation pressure in order to cope with this lag effect. Therefore, the central bank should be cautious not only to the rising inflation but also to the effect of high inflation inertia on monetary policy.