Financial innovation challenges the foundations of monetary theory, and standard monetary theory has not been very successful at describing the history of U.S. inflation. Motivated by these observations, I ask: Can we understand the history of U.S. inflation using a framework that ignores monetary frictions? The fiscal theory of the price level allows us to think about price level determination with no monetary frictions. The price level adjusts to equilibrate the real value of nominal government debt with the present value of surpluses. I describe the theory, and I argue that it is a return to pre-quantity theoretic ideas in which money is valued via a commodity standard or because the government accepts it to pay taxes. Both sources of value are immune to financial innovation and the presence or absence of monetary frictions. I then interpret the history of U.S. inflation with a fiscal-theory, frictionless view. I show how the fiscal theory can accommodate the stylized fact that deficits and inflation seem to be negatively, not positively correlated. I verify its prediction that open market operations do not affect inflation. I show how debt policy has already smoothed inflation a great deal.
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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number
6646.
Length: Date of creation: Jul 1998 Date of revision: Publication status: published relationship to a non-chapter. This should not happen. Please contact NBER. Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:6646
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John H. Cochrane, 1999.
"A Frictionless View of U.S. Inflation,"
NBER Chapters,
in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1998, volume 13, pages 323-421
National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
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Find related papers by JEL classification: E4 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates E5 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit
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