IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/0670.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Indexing and Inflation

Author

Listed:
  • Stanley Fischer

Abstract

Much of the opposition to indexation as a means of adapting to on going inflation arises from the view that indexation is itself inflationary. This paper examines the basis for that view in a simple macroeconomic model in which budget deficits are in part financed through the printing of money. It is shown that all aspects of indexing -- wage indexation, bond indexation, and tax indexation -- tend to increase the impact on the price level of any inflationary shock. However, this association between indexation and inflation is in large part a consequence of the monetary and fiscal policies being followed by the government. Evidence from a cross-section of forty countries on the effects of indexation on the inflationary impact of the oil price shock of 1974 suggests that indexation did not in general increase the inflationary impact of the oil shock. However, the impact of the oil shock was significantly stronger in those countries that had adopted bond indexation.

Suggested Citation

  • Stanley Fischer, 1981. "Indexing and Inflation," NBER Working Papers 0670, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:0670
    Note: EFG
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w0670.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gray, Jo Anna, 1976. "Wage indexation: A macroeconomic approach," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 2(2), pages 221-235, April.
    2. Kydland, Finn E & Prescott, Edward C, 1977. "Rules Rather Than Discretion: The Inconsistency of Optimal Plans," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 85(3), pages 473-491, June.
    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. Hofmann, Boris & Peersman, Gert & Straub, Roland, 2012. "Time variation in U.S. wage dynamics," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(8), pages 769-783.
    2. Barbosa, Fernando de Holanda, 1984. "Ensaios sobre inflação e indexação," FGV EPGE Economics Working Papers (Ensaios Economicos da EPGE) 43, EPGE Brazilian School of Economics and Finance - FGV EPGE (Brazil).
    3. Ralph C. Kimball & Richard W. Kopcke, 1999. "Inflation-indexed bonds: the dog that didn't bark," New England Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, issue Jan, pages 3-24.
    4. Jonathan A. Attey, 2016. "Time-Varying Degree of Wage Indexation and the New Keynesian Wage Phillips Curve," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 16-102/VI, Tinbergen Institute.
    5. Giuseppe DIANA, 2000. "Wage Indexation, Central Bank Independence and the Cost of Disinflation," Working Papers of BETA 2000-03, Bureau d'Economie Théorique et Appliquée, UDS, Strasbourg.
    6. Giuseppe Diana & Mose Sidiropoulos, 2004. "Central Bank Independence, Speed of Disinflation and the Sacrifice Ratio," Open Economies Review, Springer, vol. 15(4), pages 385-402, October.
    7. Steven Holland, 1994. "Inflation and Wage Indexation in the Postwar U.S," Macroeconomics 9402001, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Oscar Landerretche & Rodrigo Valdés, 1998. "Indexation: Historical Characteristics in Chile and International Experience," Journal Economía Chilena (The Chilean Economy), Central Bank of Chile, vol. 1(2), pages 041-068, December.
    9. Geronikolaou, George & Spyromitros, Eleftherios & Tsintzos, Panagiotis, 2020. "Progressive taxation and human capital as determinants of inflation persistence," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 82-97.
    10. Elul, Ronel, 2008. "Collateral, credit history, and the financial decelerator," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 17(1), pages 63-88, January.
    11. Ghada Abbas, 2006. "Gestion de la dette publique et lissage des taux d’imposition," CAE Working Papers 46, Aix-Marseille Université, CERGAM.
    12. Bar-Ilan, Avner & Seidmann, Daniel J., 2006. "Endogenous contract structure and monetary policy," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 50(4), pages 1043-1060, May.
    13. Vegh, Carlos, 1991. "Stopping High Inflation: An Analytical Overview," MPRA Paper 20175, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    14. Geronikolaou, George & Spyromitros, Eleftherios & Tsintzos, Panagiotis, 2016. "Inflation persistence: The path of labor market structural reforms," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 317-322.
    15. Vybhavi Balasundharam & Arika Kayastha & Mr. Marcos Poplawski Ribeiro, 2023. "Inflation Indexation in Public Finances: A Global Dataset on Current Practices," IMF Working Papers 2023/264, International Monetary Fund.
    16. repec:kap:iaecre:v:12:y:2006:i:3:p:287-297 is not listed on IDEAS
    17. RUGE-MURCIA, Francisco J., 1997. "Credibility and Signaling in Disinflation- a Cross Country Examination," Cahiers de recherche 9712, Universite de Montreal, Departement de sciences economiques.
    18. Andreas Freytag, 2005. "The credibility of monetary reform – New evidence," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 124(3), pages 391-409, September.
    19. Giuseppe Diana & MoÏse Sidiropoulos, 2006. "Central Bank Independence and the Cost of Disinflation: Why the Wage Contracts Length Matters?," International Advances in Economic Research, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 12(3), pages 287-297, August.
    20. Halabi, Claudia E. & Lastrapes, William D., 2003. "Estimating the liquidity effect in post-reform Chile: do inflationary expectations matter?," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 22(6), pages 813-833, November.
    21. Stephanos Papadamou & Eleftherios Spyromitros & Panagiotis Tsintzos, 2017. "Public investment, inflation persistence and central bank independence," Journal of Economic Studies, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 44(6), pages 976-986, November.
    22. Joshua Aizenman & Jacob Frenkel, 1986. "Wage Indexation, Supply Shocks, and Monetary Policy in a Small, Open Economy," NBER Chapters, in: Economic Adjustment and Exchange Rates in Developing Countries, pages 89-142, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    23. RUGE-MURCIA, Francisco J., 1997. "Heterodox Inflation Stabilization in Argentina, Brazil, and Israel. A Historical Review and Some Stylized Facts," Cahiers de recherche 9707, Universite de Montreal, Departement de sciences economiques.

    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. Kenneth S. Rogoff, 1983. "Productive and counterproductive cooperative monetary policies," International Finance Discussion Papers 233, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    2. Pierpaolo Benigno & Luca Antonio Ricci, 2011. "The Inflation-Output Trade-Off with Downward Wage Rigidities," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(4), pages 1436-1466, June.
    3. Taniya Ghosh & Yadavindu Ajit, 2023. "Central bank transparency, the role of institutions and inflation persistence," Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Mumbai Working Papers 2023-012, Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Mumbai, India.
    4. Barro, Robert J. & Gordon, David B., 1983. "Rules, discretion and reputation in a model of monetary policy," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 12(1), pages 101-121.
    5. Hatcher, Michael C., 2011. "Comparing inflation and price-level targeting: A comprehensive review of the literature," Cardiff Economics Working Papers E2011/22, Cardiff University, Cardiff Business School, Economics Section.
    6. Alogoskoufis, George & Malliaris, A.G. & Stengos, Thanasis, 2023. "The scope and methodology of economic and financial asymmetries," The Journal of Economic Asymmetries, Elsevier, vol. 27(C).
    7. Stanley Fischer, 2007. ""The Econometrics of Price Determination", Thirty-Five Years Later," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 39(s1), pages 171-179, February.
    8. Eijffinger, Sylvester & Schaling, Eric & Hoeberichts, Marco, 1998. "Central bank independence: A sensitivity analysis," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 14(1), pages 73-88, February.
    9. Broadbent, Ben & Barro, Robert J., 1997. "Central bank preferences and macroeconomic equilibrium," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 17-43, June.
    10. Eijffinger, S.C.W. & Schaling, E., 1993. "Central bank independence : Theory and evidence (Revised version)," Other publications TiSEM a26d2af2-01f7-4f0f-b2e9-3, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    11. Thierry Warin, 2006. "From Full Employment to the Natural Rate of Unemployment: A Survey," Middlebury College Working Paper Series 0601, Middlebury College, Department of Economics.
    12. repec:kap:iaecre:v:12:y:2006:i:3:p:287-297 is not listed on IDEAS
    13. George Alogoskoufis, 2018. "The Clash of Central Bankers with Labour Market Insiders, and the Persistence of Inflation and Unemployment," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 85(337), pages 152-176, January.
    14. George Alogoskoufis, 2015. "On the Taylor Rule and Optimal Monetary Policy in a “Natural Rate” Model," Working Papers 201505, Athens University Of Economics and Business, Department of Economics.
    15. repec:aeb:wpaper:201604:i:4:y:2016 is not listed on IDEAS
    16. Nir Klein, 2003. "Reputation and Indexation in an Inflation Targeting Framework," Bank of Israel Working Papers 2003.13, Bank of Israel.
    17. Patricia Bonini, 2004. "New Macroeconomics and Credibility Analysis," Economia, ANPEC - Associação Nacional dos Centros de Pós-Graduação em Economia [Brazilian Association of Graduate Programs in Economics], vol. 5(2), pages 341-359.
    18. Rotondi, Zeno, 2000. "Time consistent monetary policy reconsidered: may we have a deflationary bias too?," Discussion Paper Series In Economics And Econometrics 4, Economics Division, School of Social Sciences, University of Southampton.
    19. Mankiw, N Gregory, 1990. "A Quick Refresher Course in Macroeconomics," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 28(4), pages 1645-1660, December.
    20. Romain Plassard, 2019. "From Disequilibrium to Equilibrium Macroeconomics: Barro and Grossman's Trade-off between Rigor and Realism," GREDEG Working Papers 2019-17, Groupe de REcherche en Droit, Economie, Gestion (GREDEG CNRS), Université Côte d'Azur, France.
    21. Giuseppe Diana & MoÏse Sidiropoulos, 2006. "Central Bank Independence and the Cost of Disinflation: Why the Wage Contracts Length Matters?," International Advances in Economic Research, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 12(3), pages 287-297, August.
    22. Piersanti, Giovanni, 2012. "The Macroeconomic Theory of Exchange Rate Crises," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199653126, Decembrie.

    More about this item

    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:nbr:nberwo:0670. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.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.