Globalization and International Inflation Dynamics: The Role of the Global Output Gap

Globalization has been suggested to increase the sensitivity of domestic inflation to global economic conditions. This paper develops an unobserved components model that is consistent with an open economy New Keynesian Phillips curve (NKPC), and finds that a global output gap has replaced the domestic output gap as the key driving variable for inflation in 17 advanced and emerging countries, particularly since the year 2000. The cross country analysis also suggests that the influence of the global output gap for national price movements is positively correlated to a country's degree of openness in trade. Upon the inclusion of import and oil prices to the NKPC specification, the global output gap remains a significant driving variable for inflation, suggesting that the global output gap matters for inflation beyond the traditional import price channel.