IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/lev/wrkpap/wp_483.html

Fisher's Theory of Interest Rates and the Notion of Real: A Critique

Author

Listed:
  • Eric Tymoigne

Abstract

By providing five different criticisms of the notion of real rate, the paper argues that this concept, as Fisher defined it or as a definition, is not relevant to economic analysis. Following Keynes and other post-Keynesians, the article shows that the notion of real rate is microeconomically and macroeconomically unfounded. Adjusting interest rates for inflation does not protect the purchasing power of wealth, and it is impossible to do so at the macroeconomic level. In addition, an empirical interpretation of the break in the correlation between interest rates and inflation since 1953 is provided.

Suggested Citation

  • Eric Tymoigne, 2006. "Fisher's Theory of Interest Rates and the Notion of Real: A Critique," Economics Working Paper Archive wp_483, Levy Economics Institute.
    • Handle: RePEc:lev:wrkpap:wp_483
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.levyinstitute.org/pubs/wp_483.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Richard Clarida & Jordi Galí & Mark Gertler, 2000. "Monetary Policy Rules and Macroeconomic Stability: Evidence and Some Theory," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 115(1), pages 147-180.
    2. Cottrell, Allin, 1994. "Keynes and the Keynesians on the Fisher Effect," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 41(4), pages 416-433, November.
    3. Milton Friedman, 1971. "A Theoretical Framework for Monetary Analysis," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number frie71-1, August.
    4. Frank Hahn, 1985. "Money and Inflation," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262580624, December.
    5. Kregel, J A, 1985. "Hamlet without the Prince: Cambridge Macroeconomics without Money," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 75(2), pages 133-139, May.
    6. Noor Ghazali & Shamshubariah Ramlee, 2003. "A long memory test of the long-run Fisher effect in the G7 countries," Applied Financial Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 13(10), pages 763-769.
    7. Fama, Eugene F, 1975. "Short-Term Interest Rates as Predictors of Inflation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 65(3), pages 269-282, June.
    8. Fisher, Irving, 1907. "The Rate of Interest," History of Economic Thought Books, McMaster University Archive for the History of Economic Thought, number fisher1907.
    9. John Smithin, 2003. "Controversies in Monetary Economics," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 2541, June.
    10. Davidson, Paul, 1972. "A Keynesian View of Friedman's Theoretical Framework for Monetary Analysis," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 80(5), pages 864-882, Sept.-Oct.
    11. Carmichael, Jeffrey & Stebbing, Peter W, 1983. "Fisher's Paradox and the Theory of Interest," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 73(4), pages 619-630, September.
    12. Granger, C. W. J., 1988. "Some recent development in a concept of causality," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 39(1-2), pages 199-211.
    13. L. R. Wray, 1990. "Money and Credit in Capitalist Economies," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 474, June.
    14. Philip Arsetis & Malcolm Sawyer (ed.), 1998. "The Political Economy of Central Banking," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 1419, June.
    15. Orphanides, Athanasios, 2004. "Monetary Policy Rules, Macroeconomic Stability, and Inflation: A View from the Trenches," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 36(2), pages 151-175, April.
    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. István Ábel & Máté Lóga & Gyula Nagy & Árpád Vadkerti, 2019. "Lifting the Veil on Interest," Financial and Economic Review, Magyar Nemzeti Bank (Central Bank of Hungary), vol. 18(3), pages 29-51.
    2. Matteo Deleidi & Enrico Sergio Levrero, 2021. "Monetary policy and long‐term interest rates: Evidence from the U.S. economy," Metroeconomica, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 72(1), pages 121-147, February.
    3. Levrero, Enrico Sergio & Deleidi, Matteo, 2019. "The causal relationship between short- and long-term interest rates: an empirical assessment of the United States," MPRA Paper 93608, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    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. Radó, Márk, 2003. "Infláció, tőkeköltség és a magyar tulajdonosok versenyhátránya [Inflation, capital costs and the competitive disadvantage of Hungarian owners]," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(11), pages 964-987.
    2. Basse, Tobias & Wegener, Christoph, 2022. "Inflation expectations: Australian consumer survey data versus the bond market," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 203(C), pages 416-430.
    3. Giuseppe Fontana & Alfonso Palacio-Vera, 2002. "Monetary Policy Rules: What Are We Learning?," Journal of Post Keynesian Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 24(4), pages 547-568, July.
    4. Akosah, Nana Kwame & Alagidede, Imhotep Paul & Schaling, Eric, 2020. "Testing for asymmetry in monetary policy rule for small-open developing economies: Multiscale Bayesian quantile evidence from Ghana," The Journal of Economic Asymmetries, Elsevier, vol. 22(C).
    5. Douglas Sutherland & Peter Hoeller & Balázs Égert & Oliver Röhn, 2010. "Counter-cyclical Economic Policy," OECD Economics Department Working Papers 760, OECD Publishing.
    6. Eckhard Hein & Christian Schoder, 2011. "Interest rates, distribution and capital accumulation -- A post-Kaleckian perspective on the US and Germany," International Review of Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 25(6), pages 693-723, November.
    7. Ayşegül Ladin SÜMER, 2020. "Optimal Taylor rule in the new era central banking perspective," Theoretical and Applied Economics, Asociatia Generala a Economistilor din Romania / Editura Economica, vol. 0(1(622), S), pages 159-170, Spring.
    8. Tachibana, Minoru, 2008. "Inflation zone targeting and the Federal Reserve," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 22(1), pages 68-84, March.
    9. Shen, Chung-Hua & Lin, Kun-Li & Guo, Na, 2016. "Hawk or dove: Switching regression model for the monetary policy reaction function in China," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 94-111.
    10. Dreger, Christian & Wolters, Jürgen, 2015. "Unconventional monetary policy and money demand," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 40-54.
    11. Anari, Ali & Kolari, James, 2016. "Dynamics of interest and inflation rates," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 39(PA), pages 129-144.
    12. Gylfason, Thorvaldur & Tómasson, Helgi & Zoega, Gylfi, 2016. "Around the world with Irving Fisher," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 232-243.
    13. Orphanides, Athanasios & Williams, John C., 2005. "The decline of activist stabilization policy: Natural rate misperceptions, learning, and expectations," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 29(11), pages 1927-1950, November.
    14. Canzoneri, Matthew & Cumby, Robert & Diba, Behzad & López-Salido, David, 2011. "The role of liquid government bonds in the great transformation of American monetary policy," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 35(3), pages 282-294, March.
    15. Zhang, Chengsi & Dang, Chao, 2018. "Is monetary policy forward-looking in China?," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 4-14.
    16. McKnight, Stephen, 2017. "Are Consumption Taxes Preferable To Income Taxes For Preventing Macroeconomic Instability?," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 21(4), pages 1023-1058, June.
    17. Owen F. Humpage & Sanchita Mukherjee, 2013. "Even keel and the Great Inflation," Working Papers (Old Series) 1315, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland.
    18. Badarudin, Z.E. & Ariff, M. & Khalid, A.M., 2013. "Post-Keynesian money endogeneity evidence in G-7 economies," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 146-162.
    19. Luhan, Wolfgang J. & Scharler, Johann, 2013. "Monetary Policy, Inflation Illusion and the Taylor Principle – An Experimental Study," Ruhr Economic Papers 402, RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-University Bochum, TU Dortmund University, University of Duisburg-Essen.
    20. Qazi Haque, 2022. "Monetary Policy, Inflation Target, and the Great Moderation: An Empirical Investigation," International Journal of Central Banking, International Journal of Central Banking, vol. 18(4), pages 1-52, October.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:lev:wrkpap:wp_483. 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: Lindsey Carter (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.levyinstitute.org .

    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.