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The welfare cost of inflation: a critique of Bailey and Lucas

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  • Alvin L. Marty

Abstract

Estimating the welfare gains from ending inflation requires taking a stand on the shape of the money demand function. A form of the money demand function that seems to describe U.S. experience - known in technical jargon as the double log form - seems to work well in countries and times where inflation was moderate. In this article, Alvin Marty argues that the double log form would not likely work well in extreme cases, where policy was set to achieve Milton Friedman's optimal money stock, or at the other extreme, hyperinflation. The author concludes that this simple functional form should not be used to calculate the welfare gains associated with implementing the optimal policy.

Suggested Citation

  • Alvin L. Marty, 1999. "The welfare cost of inflation: a critique of Bailey and Lucas," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, issue Jan, pages 41-46.
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedlrv:y:1999:i:jan:p:41-46:n:1
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Marty, Alvin L., 1976. "A note on the welfare cost of money creation," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 2(1), pages 121-124, January.
    2. Auernheimer, Leonardo, 1974. "The Honest Government's Guide to the Revenue from the Creation of Money," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 82(3), pages 598-606, May/June.
    3. Robert M. Adams, 1994. "On the welfare cost of inflation," Working Papers in Applied Economic Theory 94-07, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
    4. Robert Mundell, 1963. "Inflation and Real Interest," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 71(3), pages 280-280.
    5. Robert G. King & Alexander L. Wolman, 2013. "Inflation Targeting in a St. Louis Model of the 21st Century," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, issue Nov, pages 543-574.
    6. Ballard, Charles L & Shoven, John B & Whalley, John, 1985. "General Equilibrium Computations of the Marginal Welfare Costs of Taxes in the United States," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 75(1), pages 128-138, March.
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    Cited by:

    1. Cysne, Rubens Penha, 2002. "A note on the integrability of partial-equilibrium measures of the welfare costs of inflation," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 26(12), pages 2357-2363.
    2. Cysne, Rubens Penha, 2011. "The n-dimensional Bailey–Divisia measure as a general-equilibrium measure of the welfare costs of inflation," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 113(2), pages 99-102.
    3. Zhao, Liuyan, 2017. "The behavior of money demand in the Chinese hyperinflation," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 145-154.
    4. Rolando Gonzales Martínez, 2013. "Modeling Hyperinflation Phenomenon: A Bayesian Approach," Documentos de Investigación - Research Papers 8, CEMLA.
    5. Siffat Mushtaq & Abdul Rashid & Abdul Qayyum, 2012. "On the Welfare Cost of Inflation: The Case of Pakistan," The Pakistan Development Review, Pakistan Institute of Development Economics, vol. 51(1), pages 61-96.
    6. Faugere, Christophe, 2010. "Macrofoundations for A (Near) 2% Inflation Target," MPRA Paper 23491, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 25 Jun 2010.
    7. Zhao, Liuyan & Li, Lianfa, 2015. "Interest rate, money demand and seigniorage: The Chinese hyperinflation 1946–1949," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 169-179.

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    Keywords

    Money supply; Inflation (Finance);

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    1. Advanced Monetary Theory and Policy (ECON 447)

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