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Rudd and Whelan (2006) document evidence that the first-difference of inflation negatively depends on its own lag, and highlight that sticky price models emphasizing the role of firms’ forward-looking pricing behavior cannot be reconciled with the stylized fact. We show that the puzzling negative dependence of the first-difference of inflation on its own lag is consistent with the prediction of the hybrid New Keynesian Phillips Curve (NKPC) with lags of inflation, whereas, as it is argued, it is inconsistent with the prediction of both the purely forward-looking NKPC and its hybrid variant with a lag of inflation. Our theoretical results show that the negative dependence appears only when firms’ forward-looking pricing behavior is relatively more important than backward-looking behavior in determining inflation dynamics.

Empirical estimations of the New Keynesian Phillips curve support hybrid versions with a positive weight on lagged inflation and a weight less than one on expected inflation. We argue that myopic price setting of some agents explains the low weight on expected inflation. The lagged term can be explained by trend extrapolation if information about the future is costly. In a laboratory experiment we implement the Calvo (1983) microfoundations of the Phillips curve. Our hypotheses are supported by the experimental data. About half of the subjects set optimal Calvo prices while about a third is myopic.

O objetivo deste artigo é investigar a dinâmica da inflação no Brasil no período entre 2000-IV e 2014-II, por meio da abordagem da Curva de Phillips híbrida. Essa especificação econométrica permite avaliar os termos forward looking ou expectativa de inflação e backward looking inflação defasada. Os modelos foram estimados pelo método ARDL e os resultados mostraram que a inclusão do custo unitário do trabalho como proxy para a atividade econômica gerou um melhor ajustamento na estimação da Curva de Phillips. A expectativa de inflação tem dominância determinação da dinâmica da inflação brasileira. Há ainda um componente inercial dado pela rigidez de preços proveniente da indexação de contratos e preços administrados.