Did Recent Inflation Reflect a Nonlinear Phillips Curve?

To examine the potential role of a nonlinear Phillips curve in explaining recent US inflation, we combine evidence from both crosscity variation and aggregate time series data.A central challenge relates to how best to control for the potential confounding effect of inflation expectations.The paper explores several options.Our findings place into question the robustness that tight labour markets, due to a nonlinear Phillips curve, played a very important role in the recent inflation episode.