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Trend Inflation, Wage and Price Rigidities, and Welfare

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Author Info
Robert Amano
Kevin Moran
Stephen Murchison
Andrew Rennison

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Abstract

This paper studies the steady-state costs of inflation in a general-equilibrium model with real per capita output growth and staggered nominal price and wage contracts. Our analysis shows that trend inflation has important effects on the economy when combined with nominal contracts and real output growth. Steady-state output and welfare losses are quantitatively important even for low values of trend inflation. Further, we show that nominal wage contracting is quantitatively more important than nominal price contracting in generating these losses. This important result does not arise from price dispersion per se but from an effect of nominal output growth on the optimal markup of monopolistically competitive labour suppliers. We also demonstrate that accounting for productivity growth is important for calculating the welfare costs of inflation. Indeed, the presence of two percent productivity growth increases the welfare costs of inflation in our benchmark specification by a factor of four relative to the no-growth case.

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Paper provided by CIRPEE in its series Cahiers de recherche with number 0720.

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Date of creation: 2007
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Handle: RePEc:lvl:lacicr:0720

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Related research
Keywords: Inflation costs and benefits wage and price rigidities

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
E0 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - General
E5 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit

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  1. Mark Bils and Peter J. Klenow, 2004. "Some Evidence on the Importance of Sticky Prices," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 112(5), pages 947-985, October.
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  2. Basu, Susanto & Fernald, John G, 1997. "Returns to Scale in U.S. Production: Estimates and Implications," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 105(2), pages 249-83, April.
    Other versions:
  3. Aubhik Khan & Robert King & Alexander L. Wolman, 2002. "Optimal monetary policy," Working Papers 02-19, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia. [Downloadable!]
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  4. Robert G. King & Alexander L. Wolman, 1996. "Inflation Targeting in a St. Louis Model of the 21st Century," NBER Working Papers 5507, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  5. Guido Ascari, 2004. "Staggered prices and trend inflation: some nuisances," Macroeconomics 0404029, EconWPA. [Downloadable!]
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  6. Erceg, Christopher J. & Henderson, Dale W. & Levin, Andrew T., 2000. "Optimal monetary policy with staggered wage and price contracts," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(2), pages 281-313, October. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  7. Andreas Hornstein & Alexander L. Wolman, 2005. "Trend inflation, firm-specific capital, and sticky prices," Economic Quarterly, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, issue Fall, pages 57-83. [Downloadable!]
  8. Liam Graham & Dennis J. Snower, 2004. "The real effects of money growth in dynamic general equilibrium," Working Paper Series 412, European Central Bank. [Downloadable!]
  9. Alexander L. Wolman, 2001. "A primer on optimal monetary policy with staggered price-setting," Economic Quarterly, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, issue Fall, pages 27-52. [Downloadable!]
  10. repec:cup:macdyn:v:2:y:1998:i:3:p:383-400 is not listed on IDEAS
  11. Huang, Kevin X. D. & Liu, Zheng, 2002. "Staggered price-setting, staggered wage-setting, and business cycle persistence," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(2), pages 405-433, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  12. Lawrence J. Christiano, Martin Eichenbaum, and Charles L. Evans, 2005. "Nominal Rigidities and the Dynamic Effects of a Shock to Monetary Policy," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 113(1), pages 1-45, February.
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  13. Basu, Susanto, 1996. "Procyclical Productivity: Increasing Returns or Cyclical Utilization?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 111(3), pages 719-51, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
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