Inflation: costs and benefits
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Money and Costly Credit
I study an economy in which money and credit coexist as means of payment and the settlement of credit requires money. The model extends recent developments in microfounded monetary theory to address the choice of payment methods and the effects of inflation. Whether a buyer uses money or credit depends on the fixed cost of credit and the inflation rate. -
Inflation and Unemployment in Competitive Search Equilibrium
Using a monetary search model, Rocheteau, Rupert and Wright (2007) show that the relationship between inflation and unemployment can be positive or negative depending on the primitives of the model. The key features are indivisible labor, nonseparable preferences and bargaining. -
Alternative Optimized Monetary Policy Rules in Multi-Sector Small Open Economies: The Role of Real Rigidities
Inflation-targeting central banks around the world often state their inflation objectives with regard to the consumer price index (CPI). Yet the literature on optimal monetary policy based on models with nominal rigidities and more than one sector suggests that CPI inflation is not always the best choice from a social welfare perspective. -
April 9, 2009
Next Steps for Canadian Monetary Policy
In 2006, the Bank initiated a research program exploring two alternatives to the current inflation-targeting framework: (i) lowering the inflation target and (ii) shifting to a price-level target. This article discusses progress to date, places the Bank's findings in the context of a broader literature, and identifies avenues for future research. -
April 8, 2009
Price-Level Targeting and Stabilization Policy: A Review
This article reviews arguments in the literature for and against price-level targeting, focusing on its costs and benefits compared with inflation targeting. Benefits of price-level targeting include the effect on forward-looking inflation expectations; the ability to substitute for commitment by a central bank to its future policies; lessening forecast errors; better economic performance in response to real shocks because of lower wage indexation; and a reduction in the problem of the zero lower bound on nominal interest rates. -
April 7, 2009
Price-Level Uncertainty, Price-Level Targeting, and Nominal Debt Contracts
Many central banks around the world have embraced inflation targeting as a monetary policy framework. Interest is growing, however, in price-level targeting as an alternative. The choice of frameworks has important consequences for financial contracts, most of which are not fully indexed to the price level. Changes in the price level therefore lead to changes in the real value of contracts. -
April 5, 2009
Unexpected Inflation and Redistribution of Wealth in Canada
One of the most important arguments in favour of price stability is that unexpected inflation generates changes in the distribution of income and wealth among different economic agents. These redistributions occur because many loans are specified in fixed dollar terms and unexpected inflation redistributes wealth from creditors to debtors by reducing the real value of nominal assets and liabilities. -
Aggregate and Welfare Effects of Redistribution of Wealth Under Inflation and Price-Level Targeting
Since the work of Doepke and Schneider (2006a) and Meh and Terajima (2008), we know that inflation causes major redistribution of wealth – between households and the government, between nationals and foreigners, and between households within the same country. -
The Welfare Implications of Fiscal Dominance
This paper studies the interdependence between fiscal and monetary policy in a DSGE model with sticky prices and non-zero trend inflation. We characterize the fiscal and monetary policies by a rule whereby a given fraction k of the government debt must be backed by the discounted value of current and future primary surpluses.