IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/red/issued/20-493.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The fiscal root of inflation

Author

Listed:
  • John Cochrane

    (Stanford University)

Abstract

Unexpected inflation devalues nominal government bonds. It must therefore correspond to a decline in expected future surpluses, or a rise in their discount rates, so that the real value of debt equals the present value of surpluses. I measure each component using a vector autoregression, via responses to inflation, recession, surplus and discount rate shocks. Discount rates account for much inflation variation, for the cyclical pattern of inflation, and why persistent deficits often do not cause inflation. Long-term debt is important. In response to a fiscal shock, smooth inflation slowly devalues outstanding long-term bonds. (Copyright: Elsevier)

Suggested Citation

  • John Cochrane, 2022. "The fiscal root of inflation," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 45, pages 22-40, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:red:issued:20-493
    DOI: 10.1016/j.red.2021.06.002
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.red.2021.06.002
    Download Restriction: Access to full texts is restricted to ScienceDirect subscribers and institutional members. See https://www.sciencedirect.com/ for details.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.red.2021.06.002?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Olivier Blanchard, 2019. "Public Debt and Low Interest Rates," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(4), pages 1197-1229, April.
    2. George J. Hall & Thomas J. Sargent, 2011. "Interest Rate Risk and Other Determinants of Post-WWII US Government Debt/GDP Dynamics," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 3(3), pages 192-214, July.
    3. John H. Cochrane, 2011. "Determinacy and Identification with Taylor Rules," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 119(3), pages 565-615.
    4. John Y. Campbell, Robert J. Shiller, 1988. "The Dividend-Price Ratio and Expectations of Future Dividends and Discount Factors," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 1(3), pages 195-228.
    5. Lawrence J. Christiano & Martin Eichenbaum & 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.
    6. John H. Cochrane, 2008. "The Dog That Did Not Bark: A Defense of Return Predictability," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 21(4), pages 1533-1575, July.
    7. Olivier J Blanchard, 2019. "Public Debt: Fiscal and Welfare Costs in a Time of Low Interest Rates," Policy Briefs PB19-2, Peterson Institute for International Economics.
    8. Frank Smets & Rafael Wouters, 2007. "Shocks and Frictions in US Business Cycles: A Bayesian DSGE Approach," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(3), pages 586-606, June.
    9. Campbell Leith & Eric Leeper, 2016. "Understanding Inflation as a Joint Monetary-Fiscal Phenomenon," Working Papers 2016_01, Business School - Economics, University of Glasgow.
    10. John Y. Campbell & Robert J. Shiller, 1991. "Yield Spreads and Interest Rate Movements: A Bird's Eye View," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 58(3), pages 495-514.
    11. J. B. Taylor & Harald Uhlig (ed.), 2016. "Handbook of Macroeconomics," Handbook of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 2, number 2.
    12. John Cochrane, 2022. "A fiscal theory of monetary policy with partially repaid long-term debt," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 45, pages 1-21, July.
    13. Bohn, Henning, 1995. "The Sustainability of Budget Deficits in a Stochastic Economy," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 27(1), pages 257-271, February.
    14. Leeper, Eric M. & Li, Bing, 2017. "Surplus–debt regressions," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 151(C), pages 10-15.
    15. Ramey, V.A., 2016. "Macroeconomic Shocks and Their Propagation," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & Harald Uhlig (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 71-162, Elsevier.
    16. Marco Bassetto & Thomas J. Sargent, 2020. "Shotgun Wedding: Fiscal and Monetary Policy," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 12(1), pages 659-690, August.
    17. George Hall & Jonathan Payne & Thomas J. Sargent, 2018. "US Federal Debt 1776-1960: Quantities and Prices," Working Papers 18-25, New York University, Leonard N. Stern School of Business, Department of Economics.
    18. Campbell, John Y & Ammer, John, 1993. "What Moves the Stock and Bond Markets? A Variance Decomposition for Long-Term Asset Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 48(1), pages 3-37, March.
    19. Leeper, E.M. & Leith, C., 2016. "Understanding Inflation as a Joint Monetary–Fiscal Phenomenon," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & Harald Uhlig (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 2305-2415, Elsevier.
    20. John H. Cochrane, 2019. "The Value of Government Debt," NBER Working Papers 26090, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    21. John Cochrane, 2022. "A fiscal theory of monetary policy with partially repaid long-term debt," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 45, pages 1-21, July.
    22. Fama, Eugene F & Bliss, Robert R, 1987. "The Information in Long-Maturity Forward Rates," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 77(4), pages 680-692, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Lamia Bazzaoui & Jun Nagayasu, 2021. "Is Inflation Fiscally Determined?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(20), pages 1-26, October.
    2. Jiang, Zhengyang & Lustig, Hanno & Van Nieuwerburgh, Stijn & Xiaolan, Mindy Z., 2020. "Manufacturing Risk-Free Government Debt," Research Papers 3882, Stanford University, Graduate School of Business.
    3. Van Nieuwerburgh, Stijn & Elenev, Vadim & Landvoigt, Tim & Shultz, Patrick, 2021. "Can Monetary Policy Create Fiscal Capacity?," CEPR Discussion Papers 16414, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    4. Marco Bassetto & Gherardo Gennaro Caracciolo, 2021. "Monetary/Fiscal Interactions with Forty Budget Constraints," Working Papers 788, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Bonam, Dennis & Ciccarelli, Matteo & Gomes, Sandra & Aldama, Pierre & Bańkowski, Krzysztof & Buss, Ginters & da Costa, José Cardoso & Christoffel, Kai & Elfsbacka Schmöller, Michaela & Jacquinot, Pasc, 2024. "Challenges for monetary and fiscal policy interactions in the post-pandemic era," Occasional Paper Series 337, European Central Bank.
    2. John Cochrane, 2022. "A fiscal theory of monetary policy with partially repaid long-term debt," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 45, pages 1-21, July.
    3. Zhengyang Jiang & Hanno Lustig & Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh & Mindy Z. Xiaolan, 2024. "The U.S. Public Debt Valuation Puzzle," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 92(4), pages 1309-1347, July.
    4. Reichlin, Lucrezia & Ricco, Giovanni & Tarbé, Matthieu, 2023. "Monetary–fiscal crosswinds in the European Monetary Union," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 151(C).
    5. Zhengyang Jiang & Hanno Lustig & Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh & Mindy Z. Xiaolan, 2020. "Manufacturing Risk-free Government Debt," NBER Working Papers 27786, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Bayer, Christian & Born, Benjamin & Luetticke, Ralph, 2023. "The liquidity channel of fiscal policy," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 134(C), pages 86-117.
    7. Stijn Claessens & M Ayhan Kose, 2017. "Asset prices and macroeconomic outcomes: a survey," BIS Working Papers 676, Bank for International Settlements.
    8. Amélie Barbier‐Gauchard & Thierry Betti, 2021. "Spillover effects of fiscal policy in a monetary union: Why do fiscal instruments matter?," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 73(1), pages 1-33, January.
    9. John H. Cochrane, 2011. "Discount Rates," NBER Working Papers 16972, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Leeper, Eric M. & Li, Bing, 2017. "Surplus–debt regressions," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 151(C), pages 10-15.
    11. Lindé, J. & Smets, F. & Wouters, R., 2016. "Challenges for Central Banks’ Macro Models," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & Harald Uhlig (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 2185-2262, Elsevier.
    12. Stijn Claessens & M Ayhan Kose, 2018. "Frontiers of macrofinancial linkages," BIS Papers, Bank for International Settlements, number 95.
    13. Andr? Kurmann & Christopher Otrok, 2013. "News Shocks and the Slope of the Term Structure of Interest Rates," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(6), pages 2612-2632, October.
    14. Lindé, Jesper & Smets, Frank & Wouters, Rafael, 2016. "Challenges for Central Banks´ Macro Models," Working Paper Series 323, Sveriges Riksbank (Central Bank of Sweden).
    15. Oscar Jorda & Alan Taylor & Sanjay Singh, 2019. "The Long-Run Effects of Monetary Policy," 2019 Meeting Papers 1307, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    16. Battistini, Niccolò & Callegari, Giovanni, 2020. "Public spending at the effective lower bound: how significant are the sustainability risks?," Research Bulletin, European Central Bank, vol. 67.
    17. Eric M. Leeper & Nora Traum & Todd B. Walker, 2017. "Clearing Up the Fiscal Multiplier Morass," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(8), pages 2409-2454, August.
    18. John Y. Campbell & John Cochrane, 1999. "Force of Habit: A Consumption-Based Explanation of Aggregate Stock Market Behavior," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 107(2), pages 205-251, April.
    19. De Graeve, Ferre & Dossche, Maarten & Emiris, Marina & Sneessens, Henri & Wouters, Raf, 2010. "Risk premiums and macroeconomic dynamics in a heterogeneous agent model," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 34(9), pages 1680-1699, September.
    20. Maurice Obstfeld & Kenneth Rogoff, 2021. "Revisiting speculative hyperinflations in monetary models," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 40, pages 1-11, April.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Fiscal theory of the price level; Monetary policy; Fiscal policy; Inflation;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E31 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Price Level; Inflation; Deflation
    • E63 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Comparative or Joint Analysis of Fiscal and Monetary Policy; Stabilization; Treasury Policy

    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:red:issued:20-493. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: Christian Zimmermann (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/sedddea.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.