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The Burst of High Inflation in 2021–22: How and Why Did We Get Here?

Author

Listed:
  • Ricardo Reis

    (London School of Economics (LSE)
    Centre for Macroeconomics (CFM))

Abstract

The current institutional arrangements for monetary policy delivered more than two decades of low and stable inflation. Yet, central banks failed to prevent a burst of high inflation in 2021-22. This paper inspects four tentative hypotheses for why this happened. The first is a misdiagnosis of the nature of shocks during a time of great uncertainty leading to an overly long period of expansionary policy. The second is a neglect of expectations data driven by a strong belief that inflation expectations were firmly anchored and so inflation increases would be temporary. The third is an over-reliance on the credibility earned in the past, creating an illusion of too much room to focus on the recovery of real activity and underpredicting the resulting inflation. The fourth is a revision of strategy that made central banks tolerant of higher inflation because of the trend fall in the return on government bonds, even though the return on private capital stayed high.

Suggested Citation

  • Ricardo Reis, 2022. "The Burst of High Inflation in 2021–22: How and Why Did We Get Here?," Discussion Papers 2209, Centre for Macroeconomics (CFM).
    • Handle: RePEc:cfm:wpaper:2209
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    File URL: https://www.lse.ac.uk/CFM/assets/pdf/CFM-Discussion-Papers-2022/CFMDP2022-09-Paper.pdf
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    Cited by:

    1. Goodhart, Charles A.E. & Tsomocos, Dimitrios P. & Wang, Xuan, 2023. "Bank credit, inflation, and default risks over an infinite horizon," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).
    2. Max Sina Knicker & Karl Naumann-Woleske & Jean-Philippe Bouchaud & Francesco Zamponi, 2023. "Post-COVID Inflation & the Monetary Policy Dilemma: An Agent-Based Scenario Analysis," Papers 2306.01284, arXiv.org, revised Jan 2024.
    3. Viral V. Acharya & Matteo Crosignani & Tim Eisert & Christian Eufinger, 2023. "How Do Supply Shocks to Inflation Generalize? Evidence from the Pandemic Era in Europe," NBER Working Papers 31790, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • E58 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Central Banks and Their Policies
    • E50 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - General
    • E31 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Price Level; Inflation; Deflation

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