IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/moneco/v56y2009i7p1004-1013.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The welfare costs of expected and unexpected inflation

Author

Listed:
  • Faig, Miquel
  • Li, Zhe

Abstract

The monetary search model by Lagos and Wright (2005) is extended with imperfect information about nominal shocks as in Lucas (1972). An analytical solution exists with logarithmic preferences. In general, individuals hold precautionary balances. Calibrated to United States postwar data, the welfare cost of the monetary cycle is calculated to be small (below 0.0003% of GDP) compared to the welfare cost of the inflation tax (around 0.25% of GDP). The main reason for the minute welfare cost of the monetary cycle is its low amplitude in 1947-2007. But, monetary crashes, such as those experienced during the Great Depression, can generate important welfare costs.

Suggested Citation

  • Faig, Miquel & Li, Zhe, 2009. "The welfare costs of expected and unexpected inflation," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(7), pages 1004-1013, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:moneco:v:56:y:2009:i:7:p:1004-1013
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304-3932(09)00123-8
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    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. Adam, Klaus, 2007. "Optimal monetary policy with imperfect common knowledge," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(2), pages 267-301, March.
    2. Wallace, Neil, 1997. "Short-Run and Long-Run Effects of Changes in Money in a Random-Matching Model," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 105(6), pages 1293-1307, December.
    3. Lucas, Robert E, Jr, 1973. "Some International Evidence on Output-Inflation Tradeoffs," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 63(3), pages 326-334, June.
    4. Guillaume Rocheteau & Randall Wright, 2005. "Money in Search Equilibrium, in Competitive Equilibrium, and in Competitive Search Equilibrium," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 73(1), pages 175-202, January.
    5. Miquel Faig & Belén Jerez, 2007. "Precautionary Balances and the Velocity of Circulation of Money," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 39(4), pages 843-873, June.
    6. Lucas, Robert Jr., 1972. "Expectations and the neutrality of money," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 4(2), pages 103-124, April.
    7. Ricardo Lagos & Randall Wright, 2005. "A Unified Framework for Monetary Theory and Policy Analysis," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 113(3), pages 463-484, June.
    8. Irina A. Telyukova & Randall Wright, 2008. "A Model of Money and Credit, with Application to the Credit Card Debt Puzzle," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 75(2), pages 629-647.
    9. Christian Hellwig, 2004. "Heterogeneous Information and the Benefits of Public Information Disclosures (October 2005)," UCLA Economics Online Papers 283, UCLA Department of Economics.
    10. Katzman, Brett & Kennan, John & Wallace, Neil, 2003. "Output and price level effects of monetary uncertainty in a matching model," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 108(2), pages 217-255, February.
    11. Lucas, Robert E, Jr, 1975. "An Equilibrium Model of the Business Cycle," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 83(6), pages 1113-1144, December.
    12. Robert E. Lucas Jr., 2003. "Macroeconomic Priorities," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(1), pages 1-14, March.
    13. King, Robert G, 1982. "Monetary Policy and the Information Content of Prices," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 90(2), pages 247-279, 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. Guillaume Rocheteau & Pierre-Olivier Weill & Tsz-Nga Wong, 2015. "Working through the Distribution: Money in the Short and Long Run," NBER Working Papers 21779, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Williamson, Stephen & Wright, Randall, 2010. "New Monetarist Economics: Models," Handbook of Monetary Economics, in: Benjamin M. Friedman & Michael Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Monetary Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 2, pages 25-96, Elsevier.
    3. Wang, Liang, 2016. "Endogenous search, price dispersion, and welfare," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 94-117.
    4. Arman Mansoorian & Leo Michelis, 2016. "Measuring the contribution of durable goods to the welfare cost of inflation," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 49(2), pages 815-833, May.
    5. Tsz-Nga Wong & Pierre-Olivier Weill & Guillaume Rocheteau, 2015. "Long-Run and Short-Run Effects of Money Injections," 2015 Meeting Papers 793, Society for Economic Dynamics.

    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. Rondina, Giacomo & Walker, Todd B., 2021. "Confounding dynamics," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 196(C).
    2. Nimark, Kristoffer, 2008. "Dynamic pricing and imperfect common knowledge," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(2), pages 365-382, March.
    3. Kenza Benhima & Isabella Blengini, 2020. "Optimal Monetary Policy when Information is Market-Generated," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 130(628), pages 956-975.
    4. Telyukova, Irina A. & Visschers, Ludo, 2009. "Precautionary Demand for Money in a Monetary Business Cycle Model," MPRA Paper 15622, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Guido Lorenzoni, 2009. "A Theory of Demand Shocks," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(5), pages 2050-2084, December.
    6. Stephen D. Williamson & Randall Wright, 2010. "New monetarist economics: methods," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, vol. 92(May), pages 265-302.
    7. Guido Lorenzoni, 2007. "News Shocks and Optimal Monetary Policy," NBER Working Papers 12898, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Williamson, Stephen & Wright, Randall, 2010. "New Monetarist Economics: Models," Handbook of Monetary Economics, in: Benjamin M. Friedman & Michael Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Monetary Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 2, pages 25-96, Elsevier.
    9. Aleksander Berentsen & Gabriele Camera & C hristopher W aller, 2005. "The Distribution Of Money Balances And The Nonneutrality Of Money," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 46(2), pages 465-487, May.
    10. Telyukova, Irina A. & Visschers, Ludo, 2013. "Precautionary money demand in a business-cycle model," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(8), pages 900-916.
    11. George-Marios Angeletos & Jennifer La'O, 2010. "Noisy Business Cycles," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 2009, Volume 24, pages 319-378, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Angeletos, George-Marios & La’O, Jennifer, 2009. "Incomplete information, higher-order beliefs and price inertia," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(S), pages 19-37.
    13. Baranowski, Ryan, 2015. "Adaptive learning and monetary exchange," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 1-18.
    14. Rocheteau, Guillaume & Weill, Pierre-Olivier & Wong, Tsz-Nga, 2021. "An heterogeneous-agent New-Monetarist model with an application to unemployment," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 64-90.
    15. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/f4rshpf3v1umfa09lat09b1bg is not listed on IDEAS
    16. Anelí Bongers & José L. Torres & Jesús Rodríguez, 2010. "Caracterización del ciclo económico en Andalucía 1980 - 2008," Economic Working Papers at Centro de Estudios Andaluces E2010/08, Centro de Estudios Andaluces.
    17. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/f4rshpf3v1umfa09lat09b1bg is not listed on IDEAS
    18. Bennet T. McCallum, 1984. "A Linearized Version of Lucas's Neutrality Model," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 17(1), pages 138-145, February.
    19. Ludo Visschers & Irina A. Telyukova, 2009. "Precautionary Demand for Money in a Monetary Search Business Cycle Model," 2009 Meeting Papers 410, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    20. Cordelius Ilgmann & Martin Menner, 2011. "Negative nominal interest rates: history and current proposals," International Economics and Economic Policy, Springer, vol. 8(4), pages 383-405, December.
    21. University of California & Giacomo Rondina, 2008. "Incomplete Information and Informative Pricing: Theory and Application," 2008 Meeting Papers 981, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    22. Janet Hua Jiang & Enchuan Shao, 2020. "The Cash Paradox," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 36, pages 177-197, April.

    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:eee:moneco:v:56:y:2009:i:7:p:1004-1013. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/505566 .

    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.