IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/1339.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Contracts, Credibility, and Disinflation

Author

Listed:
  • Stanley Fischer

Abstract

Estimates of the cost of disinflation made before the recent reduction in the inflation rate varied widely. Estimates were made in terms of the sacrifice ratio -- the percentage points of GNP at an annual rate lost per percentage point reduction in the inflation rate. At one extreme it was argued thata resolute and credible monetary policy could reduce inflation virtually costlessly. At the other extreme were estimates that the sacrifice ratio exceeded 10. Costless immediate disinflation is not possible in an economy with long-term labor contracts. This paper sets out a simple contracting model of wage and output determination and uses it to calculate sacrifice ratios for a disinflation program, under the assumption that announced policy changes are immediately believed. Under this assumption disinflation with a structure of labor contracts like those of the United States would be less costly than typically estimated.The model is then modified to allow for the slow adjustment of expectations of policy to actual policy; sacrifice ratios then approach the ranges typically estimated. The sacrifice ratio for the current disinflation is calculated in the last section: the current disinflation was somewhat more rapid and less costly than previous estimates suggested. The calculated sacrifice ratio is consistent with the predictions of the simple contracting model.

Suggested Citation

  • Stanley Fischer, 1984. "Contracts, Credibility, and Disinflation," NBER Working Papers 1339, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:1339
    Note: EFG
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w1339.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Taylor, John B, 1980. "Aggregate Dynamics and Staggered Contracts," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 88(1), pages 1-23, February.
    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. Peter N. Ireland, 1997. "Stopping inflations, big and small," Proceedings, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, pages 759-782.
    2. Sebastian Edwards, 1996. "A Tale of Two Crises: Chile and Mexico," NBER Working Papers 5794, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Frederic S. Mishkin, 1984. "The causes of inflation," Proceedings - Economic Policy Symposium - Jackson Hole, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, pages 1-32.
    4. Jonung, Lars & Fregert, Klas, 2008. "Inflation Targeting Is a Success, So Far: 100 Years of Evidence from Swedish Wage Contracts," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 2, pages 1-25.
    5. Klas Fregert & Lars Jonung, 2007. "Policy rule evaluation by contract-makers: 100 years of wage contract length in Sweden," European Economy - Economic Papers 2008 - 2015 270, Directorate General Economic and Financial Affairs (DG ECFIN), European Commission.
    6. Ireland, Peter N., 1995. "Optimal disinflationary paths," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 19(8), pages 1429-1448, November.
    7. Stanley Fischer, 1984. "Real Balances, the Exchange Rate and Indexation: Real Variables in Disinflation," NBER Working Papers 1497, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Chan Guk Huh & Kevin J. Lansing, 1998. "Federal Reserve credibility and inflation scares," Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, pages 3-16.
    9. Neven Valev, 2000. "Building Monetary Credibility in a Transforming Economy," International Center for Public Policy Working Paper Series, at AYSPS, GSU paper0212, International Center for Public Policy, Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State University.
    10. Sajid Anwar & S. Zahid Ali, 2007. "Exogenous Shocks and Exchange Rate Management in Developing Countries," Finance Working Papers 22245, East Asian Bureau of Economic Research.
    11. Ball, Laurence, 1995. "Disinflation with imperfect credibility," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 35(1), pages 5-23, February.
    12. Bennett T. McCallum, 1984. "Credibility and monetary policy," Proceedings - Economic Policy Symposium - Jackson Hole, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, pages 105-135.
    13. Harmanta, M. Barik Bathaluddin & Jati Waluyo, 2010. "Inflation Targeting under Imperfect Credibility Based on the Aggregate Rational Inflation-Targeting Model for Bank Indonesia (ARIMBI): Lessons from the Indonesian Experience," Occasional Papers, South East Asian Central Banks (SEACEN) Research and Training Centre, number occ50.
    14. Döpke, Jörg, 2004. "Real-time data and business cycle analysis in Germany," Discussion Paper Series 1: Economic Studies 2004,11, Deutsche Bundesbank.
    15. Danilo José Rodrigues Passos & Pedro Garcia Duarte, 2014. "Reavaliando A Relação Entre Independência Do Banco Central E Custos De Desinflação: Uma Análise De Viés De Seleção," Anais do XLI Encontro Nacional de Economia [Proceedings of the 41st Brazilian Economics Meeting] 040, ANPEC - Associação Nacional dos Centros de Pós-Graduação em Economia [Brazilian Association of Graduate Programs in Economics].
    16. Fregert, Klas & Jonung, Lars, 1998. "Monetary Regimes And Endogenous Wage Contracts: Sweden 1908-1995," Working Papers 1998:3, Lund University, Department of Economics, revised 21 Apr 1999.

    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. Adnan Haider Bukhari & Safdar Ullah Khan, 2008. "A Small Open Economy DSGE Model for Pakistan," The Pakistan Development Review, Pakistan Institute of Development Economics, vol. 47(4), pages 963-1008.
    2. Yuriy Gorodnichenko & Viacheslav Sheremirov & Oleksandr Talavera, 2018. "Price Setting in Online Markets: Does IT Click?," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 16(6), pages 1764-1811.
    3. Fernando Alvarez & Francesco Lippi & Juan Passadore, 2017. "Are State- and Time-Dependent Models Really Different?," NBER Macroeconomics Annual, University of Chicago Press, vol. 31(1), pages 379-457.
    4. Musy, Olivier, 2006. "Inflation persistence and the real costs of disinflation in staggered prices and partial adjustment models," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 91(1), pages 50-55, April.
    5. 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.
    6. Froyen, Richard T & Waud, Roger N, 1988. "Real Business Cycles and the Lucas Paradigm," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 26(2), pages 183-201, April.
    7. Jan Babecký & Fabrizio Coricelli & Roman Horváth, 2009. "Assessing Inflation Persistence: Micro Evidence on an Inflation Targeting Economy," Czech Journal of Economics and Finance (Finance a uver), Charles University Prague, Faculty of Social Sciences, vol. 59(2), pages 102-127, June.
    8. Dixon, Huw D. & Grimme, Christian, 2022. "State-dependent or time-dependent pricing? New evidence from a monthly firm-level survey: 1980–2017," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 150(C).
    9. Olivier Coibion & Yuriy Gorodnichenko & Saten Kumar, 2018. "How Do Firms Form Their Expectations? New Survey Evidence," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 108(9), pages 2671-2713, September.
    10. Lau, Sau-Him Paul, 2001. "Aggregate Pattern of Time-dependent Adjustment Rules, II: Strategic Complementarity and Endogenous Nonsynchronization," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 98(2), pages 199-231, June.
    11. Salisu, Afees A. & Ademuyiwa, Idris & Isah, Kazeem O., 2018. "Revisiting the forecasting accuracy of Phillips curve: The role of oil price," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 334-356.
    12. Musy, Olivier & Pereau, Jean-Christophe, 2010. "Disinflationary boom in a price-wage spiral model," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 27(1), pages 152-158, January.
    13. Marco Del Negro & Michele Lenza & Giorgio E. Primiceri & Andrea Tambalotti, 2020. "What's Up with the Phillips Curve?," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 51(1 (Spring), pages 301-373.
    14. Ichiro Fukunaga, 2007. "Imperfect Common Knowledge, Staggered Price Setting, and the Effects of Monetary Policy," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 39(7), pages 1711-1739, October.
    15. Ko Munakata & Takeshi Shinohara & Shigenori Shiratsuka & Nao Sudo & Tsutomu Watanabe, 2023. "On the Source of Seasonality in Price Changes: The Role of Seasonality in Menu Costs," Keio-IES Discussion Paper Series 2023-016, Institute for Economics Studies, Keio University.
    16. Michael T. Kiley, 1997. "Staggered price setting and real rigidities," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 1997-46, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    17. Leung, Charles Ka Yui & Ng, Joe Cho Yiu, 2018. "Macro Aspects of Housing," MPRA Paper 93512, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    18. Kevin X. D. Huang & Zheng Liu, 1999. "Chain of Production as a Monetary Propagation Mechanism," Cahiers de recherche CREFE / CREFE Working Papers 106, CREFE, Université du Québec à Montréal.
    19. Yanli LI, Hongfeng PENG & Hongfeng PENG, 2013. "Inflation Persistence in Nine Latin American Countries: Panel SURKSS Test with a Fourier Function," Journal for Economic Forecasting, Institute for Economic Forecasting, vol. 0(3), pages 132-143, October.
    20. Rosen, Sherwin, 1985. "Implicit Contracts: A Survey," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 23(3), pages 1144-1175, September.

    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:1339. 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.