IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/revaec/v16y2003i1p77-95.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Costs of Inflation Revisited

Author

Listed:
  • Horwitz, Steven

Abstract

Neoclassical treatments of inflation understate the costs associated with inflation, even at very low levels. A comparative institutions perspective that recognizes the epistemological properties of prices and the institutional process by which inflation takes place, reveals the costs of inflation to be both larger and more widespread than standard treatments suggest. This paper makes use of insights from Austrian economics, public choice theory, and the new institutional economics to argue that inflation imposes costs by undermining the coordinative properties of the price system. Not only are there the direct costs of increased economic error, but actors also divert resources away from direct want-satisfaction into attempts to either prevent or cope with the increased degree of uncertainty inflation imposes. These resource costs are best understood from a comparative institutions perspective, as traditional measures of economic well-being, such as GDP, cannot distinguish between exchanges that directly satisfy wants, and exchanges that are attempts to correct or prevent utility-diminishing activities. The analogy between these coping costs and rent-seeking behavior is explored. In addition, inflation imposes costs by undermining the coordinative properties of markets and inducing actors to, on the margin, prefer to seek wealth or allocate resources through the political process. Copyright 2003 by Kluwer Academic Publishers

Suggested Citation

  • Horwitz, Steven, 2003. "The Costs of Inflation Revisited," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 16(1), pages 77-95, March.
  • Handle: RePEc:kap:revaec:v:16:y:2003:i:1:p:77-95
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://journals.kluweronline.com/issn/0889-3047/contents
    File Function: link to full text
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Blog mentions

    As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
    1. Sumner, Murphy, Richman, and Cantillon Effects
      by Steve Horwitz in Coordination Problem on 2012-12-07 01:09:43

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. David Howden, 2010. "Knowledge shifts and the business cycle: When boom turns to bust," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 23(2), pages 165-182, June.
    2. Camba-Méndez, Gonzalo & Garcí­a, Juan Angel & Rodriguez-Palenzuela, Diego, 2003. "Relevant economic issues concerning the optimal rate of inflation," Working Paper Series 278, European Central Bank.
    3. Hogan, Thomas L., 2015. "Has the Fed improved U.S. economic performance?," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 257-266.
    4. Mina Baliamoune-Lutz & Pierre Garello, 2014. "Tax structure and entrepreneurship," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 42(1), pages 165-190, January.
    5. Steven G. Horwitz & William J. Luther, 2011. "The Great Recession and its Aftermath from a Monetary Equilibrium Theory Perspective," Chapters, in: Steven Kates (ed.), The Global Financial Crisis, chapter 4, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    6. Bagus, Philipp & Gabriel, Amadeus & Howden, David, 2014. "Causes and Consequences of Inflation," MPRA Paper 79608, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Orkhan Nadirov & Bruce Dehning, 2020. "Tax Progressivity and Entrepreneurial Dynamics," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(9), pages 1-21, April.
    8. Anthony Evans & Robert Thorpe, 2013. "The (quantity) theory of money and credit," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 26(4), pages 463-481, December.
    9. Rather, Sartaj Rasool & Durai, S. Raja Sethu & Ramachandran, M., 2014. "Inflation and relative price variability: Evidence for India," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 32-41.
    10. Davis, George K. & Hineline, David & Kanago, Bryce E., 2011. "Inflation and real sectoral output shares: Dynamic panel model evidence from seven OECD countries," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 33(4), pages 607-619.
    11. Víctor I Espinosa & David O Cueva, 2024. "The political economy of fiscal dominance: Evidence from the Chilean government of Salvador Allende," Economic Affairs, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 44(1), pages 118-138, February.
    12. Selgin, George & Lastrapes, William D. & White, Lawrence H., 2012. "Has the Fed been a failure?," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 34(3), pages 569-596.
    13. Thomas L. Hogan & Daniel J. Smith, 2022. "War, money & economy: Inflation and production in the Fed and pre-Fed periods," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 35(1), pages 15-37, March.

    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:kap:revaec:v:16:y:2003:i:1:p:77-95. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    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.