IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/een/camaaa/2018-08.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The anatomy of inflation: An economic history perspective

Author

Listed:
  • Martin T. Bohl
  • Pierre L. Siklos

Abstract

In an important sense the present survey reaches a conclusion similar to the one highlighted by Laidler and Parkin (1975) over forty years ago. Inflation, if fully anticipated, produces modest social costs. We are no closer to knowing what is ‘optimal’ inflation except that low and stable inflation come closest to reducing the loss of purchasing power of money. Because prices of goods and services incorporate elements that are difficult to measure precisely we cannot even be sure what the actual level of inflation really is. Hence, what is deemed low may well differ across countries and across time. Nevertheless, avoiding inflation is not only desirable because it represents a form of taxation without representation but, in theory at least, low and stable inflation ought to be more easily forecasted thereby reducing the likelihood of large and persistent forecast errors.

Suggested Citation

  • Martin T. Bohl & Pierre L. Siklos, 2018. "The anatomy of inflation: An economic history perspective," CAMA Working Papers 2018-08, Centre for Applied Macroeconomic Analysis, Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University.
    • Handle: RePEc:een:camaaa:2018-08
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://cama.crawford.anu.edu.au/sites/default/files/publication/cama_crawford_anu_edu_au/2018-01/8_2018_bohl_siklos_0.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Ha,Jongrim & Ivanova,Anna & Ohnsorge,Franziska Lieselotte & Unsal Portillo Ocando,Derya Filiz, 2019. "Inflation : Concepts, Evolution, and Correlates," Policy Research Working Paper Series 8738, The World Bank.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:een:camaaa:2018-08. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Cama Admin (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/asanuau.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.