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Relative Price Changes and the Optimal Inflation Rate

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  • Alexander L. Wolman

Abstract

Relative prices of some goods or sectors have long-run trends: For example, the price of services relative to goods has been rising fairly steadily for decades. Other relative prices do not have long-run trends but sometimes fluctuate dramatically from one period to the next. How should monetary policy behave in the face of these trends and fluctuations? I use a model with costly price adjustment to study the optimal rate of inflation when there are trends in relative prices and to construct hypothetical U.S. inflation rates that would have minimized the costs of price adjustment implied by the model.

Suggested Citation

  • Alexander L. Wolman, 2015. "Relative Price Changes and the Optimal Inflation Rate," Economic Quarterly, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, issue 3Q, pages 245-274.
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedreq:00035
    DOI: 10.21144/eq1010303
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Levy, Daniel & Bergen, Mark & Dutta, Shantanu & Venable, Robert, 1997. "The Magnitude of Menu Costs: Direct Evidence from Large U.S. Supermarket Chains," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 112(3), pages 791-824.
    2. Alexander L. Wolman, 2011. "The Optimal Rate of Inflation with Trending Relative Prices," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 43(2‐3), pages 355-384, March.
    3. Aoki, Kosuke, 2001. "Optimal monetary policy responses to relative-price changes," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(1), pages 55-80, August.
    4. Rotemberg, Julio J, 1982. "Sticky Prices in the United States," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 90(6), pages 1187-1211, December.
    5. Calvo, Guillermo A., 1983. "Staggered prices in a utility-maximizing framework," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 12(3), pages 383-398, September.
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    Cited by:

    1. Shu‐Hua Chen, 2018. "The Credit‐Channel Transmission Mechanism And The Nonlinear Growth And Welfare Effects Of Inflation And Taxes," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 56(2), pages 724-744, April.

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