TIME VARIATION OR ASYMMETRY? THE INFLATION AND INFLATION UNCERTAINTY NEXUS: A CASE OF CHINA

Abstract

This investigation tests the dynamic and quantile causality between inflation and inflation uncertainty of China with constructing a rolling-window based quantile causality test. The result shows unidirectional causality from inflation to inflation uncertainty, which is significantly asymmetric and time-varying. Inflation more likely causes inflation uncertainty in higher quantiles, indicating the linear model based on conditional mean may overestimate this impact in a lower quantile interval. Furthermore, the influence also exhibits a consistent time-varying property that cannot be explained simply by the conditional distribution. The causality shows more significance since 2007 when China cancelled the mandatory settlement system, which led to the increase of monetary policy independence. The time-varying nature indicates institutional changes may lead to regime switching of this causality. Our result supports the Friedman–Ball hypothesis [ Friedman, M ( 1977 ). Nobel lecture: Inflation and unemployment. Journal of Political Economy, 85(3), 451–472; Ball, L ( 1992 ). Why does high inflation raise inflation uncertainty? Journal of Monetary Economic, 29(3), 371–388] to a certain extent and implies that the purpose of controlling inflation uncertainty of China can be achieved by controlling inflation if and only if it is relatively high on the premise of the independence of monetary policy.