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EconomicsPhillips Curve
By Sitraka Forler · Lecturer, Durham Business SchoolUpdated 13 September 2026 About this site
Short-run inverse relationship between inflation and unemployment.
Lower unemployment tends to push wages and inflation up, and vice versa - a tradeoff policymakers historically exploited. The relationship breaks down in the long run (the vertical long-run Phillips curve) and during supply shocks (stagflation).
In Python
import statsmodels.api as sm X = sm.add_constant(df["unemployment"]) model = sm.OLS(df["inflation"], X).fit() print(model.params) # negative slope = the tradeoff