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This paper examines the welfare effects of mitigating the costs of inflation. In a simple model where money reduces transaction costs, a fall in the costs of inflation is equivalent to financial innovation. This can be caused by paying interest on deposits, indexing money, or “dollarizing.” Results indicate that financial innovation raises welfare in low inflation economies while reducing it in high inflation economies, due to the offsetting indirect effect of higher inflation to finance the budget.
This paper provides general equilibrium estimates of the steady-state welfare gains of lowering inflation from a low level to close to price stability, using an overlapping-generations growth model. Money demand is modeled on the basis that real money balances are a factor of production. Assuming a standard Fisher equation modified by the presence of an income tax, it is found that inflation unambiguously reduces capital intensity, drives up the before-tax real rate of return to capital, and unambiguously imposes a life-time welfare cost. This welfare cost is, however, quantitatively very modest (under 0.2 percent of GDP annually) within reasonable ranges of all parameter values.
In recent years, the Federal Reserve and central banks worldwide have enjoyed remarkable success in their battle against inflation. The challenge now confronting the Fed and its counterparts is how to proceed in this newly benign economic environment: Should monetary policy seek to maintain a rate of low-level inflation or eliminate inflation altogether in an effort to attain full price stability? In a seminal article published in 1997, Martin Feldstein developed a framework for calculating the gains in economic welfare that might result from a move from a low level of inflation to full price stability. The present volume extends that analysis, focusing on the likely costs and benefits of achieving price stability not only in the United States, but in Germany, Spain, and the United Kingdom as well. The results show that even small changes in already low inflation rates can have a substantial impact on the economic performance of different countries, and that variations in national tax rules can affect the level of gain from disinflation.
Since the inflationary 1970s, theoretical work on monetary policy has concentrated almost exclusively on price-level stabilization and the avoidance of nominal shocks. In the aftermath of the collapse of financial bubbles in various parts of the world, the accomplishments and limitations of this dominant approach are debated in this volume edited by Axel Leijonhufvud, with contributions by a number of noted monetary economists, including Nobel Laureate Robert Lucas.