---
title: "Did the Phillips curve steepen after the pandemic?"
description: "The Phillips curve, monetary policy rules and labour market tightness are all rising keywords in the economics journals, after an inflation surge that flat Phillips curves did not predict. Only 7 of 27 recent Phillips-curve papers carry a pandemic, tightness or nonlinearity keyword. Is the curve steep when labour markets are tight, and what does that mean for policy rules?"
url: https://scholar4ai.com/ideas/phillips-curve-after-the-pandemic
markdown_url: https://scholar4ai.com/ideas/phillips-curve-after-the-pandemic.md
license: CC BY-NC 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/)
share_text: "Research idea: Did the Phillips curve steepen after the pandemic?"
date: "2026-10-23"
updated: "2026-10-23"
status: "seed"
tags: ["economics", "macroeconomics"]
keywords: ["Phillips curve", "monetary policy rules", "labor market tightness"]
---

# Did the Phillips curve steepen after the pandemic?

The Phillips curve, monetary policy rules and labour market tightness are all rising keywords in the economics journals, after an inflation surge that flat Phillips curves did not predict. Only 7 of 27 recent Phillips-curve papers carry a pandemic, tightness or nonlinearity keyword. Is the curve steep when labour markets are tight, and what does that mean for policy rules?

## What prompted this

In economics, "Phillips curve" (7 papers in July–September 2026 against about 2 expected), "monetary policy rules" (7 against 2) and "labor market tightness" (6 against 1) are all growing (see the [economics dashboard](/categories/economics)), and the New Keynesian Phillips curve is on the [equation ranking](/rankings/equations)'s list. Since October 2025, 27 papers carry a Phillips-curve keyword (20 in economics journals); 7 of them carry a labour-market-tightness, pandemic or nonlinear keyword.

## Questions

- Measured with vacancies per unemployed worker rather than unemployment, is the curve steep when labour markets are tight and flat otherwise?
- Does the same pattern hold across countries and across US cities, where tightness varied?
- Would policy rules that respond to tightness have kept inflation steadier?

## Data that could help

Vacancies and unemployment by country and metro area, inflation (FRED, OECD) and inflation expectation surveys.

## Next step

Estimate a Phillips curve with the vacancy-to-unemployment ratio and a tightness threshold on US metro data for 2000–2025.

## Related research activity

*The keywords this note follows, in the tracked finance, accounting, economics, management, operations research and AI journals as of 2026-10-26*

| Keyword | Papers, last 30 days | Rank | Papers per month, Oct 23 – Oct 26* | Papers, last 36 months |
|---|---:|---:|---|---:|
| Phillips curve | 2 | #1303 | 0, 1, 1, 0, 3, 2, 1, 2, 3, 0, 4, 2, 3, 1, 0, 3, 5, 1, 0, 0, 3, 1, 0, 3, 1, 0, 2, 2, 1, 0, 3, 1, 2, 2, 4, 1, 2 | 58 |
| monetary policy rules | 0 | – | 0, 0, 0, 1, 2, 0, 2, 2, 2, 0, 0, 4, 1, 1, 2, 1, 2, 0, 1, 0, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 0, 1, 2, 0, 1, 2, 1, 3, 2, 2, 0 | 41 |
| labor market tightness | 2 | #1303 | 0, 0, 1, 1, 0, 0, 2, 2, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 2, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 1, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 0, 0, 1, 0, 3, 1, 2, 2 | 21 |

## Cite this page

Scholar4AI. (2026). Did the Phillips curve steepen after the pandemic?. Journal Research Rankings. Retrieved October 23, 2026, from https://scholar4ai.com/ideas/phillips-curve-after-the-pandemic

```bibtex
@misc{scholar4ai-ideas-phillips-curve-after-the-pandemic,
  author = {{Scholar4AI}},
  title = {Did the Phillips curve steepen after the pandemic?},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {\url{https://scholar4ai.com/ideas/phillips-curve-after-the-pandemic}},
  urldate = {2026-10-23},
  note = {Journal Research Rankings; data from OpenAlex (CC0); licensed CC BY-NC 4.0}
}
```

License: CC BY-NC 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).