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A Long-Run, Short-Run and Politico-Economic Analysis of the Welfare Costs of Inflation

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Abstract

This paper assesses the long-run and short-run (i.e. along the transition path) welfare implications of permanent changes in inflation in an environment with essential money and perfectly competitive markets. The model delivers a monetary distribution that matches moments of the distribution seen in the US data. Although there is potential for wealth redistribution to deliver welfare gains from inflation, the (total) costs of 10 percent inflation relative to zero is over 7 percent of consumption. While these results suggest a dominating real-balance effect of inflation, a politico-economic analysis concludes that the prevailing (majority rule) inflation rate is above the Friedman Rule.

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  • Scott J. Dressler, 2011. "A Long-Run, Short-Run and Politico-Economic Analysis of the Welfare Costs of Inflation," Villanova School of Business Department of Economics and Statistics Working Paper Series 16, Villanova School of Business Department of Economics and Statistics.
    • Handle: RePEc:vil:papers:16
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    Cited by:

    1. Jonathan Chiu & Miguel Molico, 2021. "Short-Run Dynamics in a Search-Theoretic Model of Monetary Exchange," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 42, pages 133-155, October.
    2. Michael Patrick Curran & Scott J. Dressler, 2019. "Preference Heterogeneity, Inflation, and Welfare," Villanova School of Business Department of Economics and Statistics Working Paper Series 40, Villanova School of Business Department of Economics and Statistics.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Inflation; Welfare; Transitions; Voting;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E40 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - General
    • E50 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - General

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