IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/fip/fedlwp/2012-058.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Understanding the distributional impact of long-run inflation

Author

Abstract

The impact of fully anticipated inflation is systematically studied in heterogeneous agent economies with an endogenous labor supply and portfolio choices. In stationary equilibrium, inflation nonlinearly alters the endogenous distributions of income, wealth, and consumption. Small departures from zero inflation have the strongest impact. Three features determine how inflation impacts distributions and welfare: financial structure, shock persistence, and labor supply elasticity. When agents can self-insure only with money, inflation reduces wealth inequality but may raise consumption inequality. Otherwise, inflation reduces consumption inequality but may raise wealth inequality. Given persistent shocks and an inelastic labor supply, inflation may raise average welfare.

Suggested Citation

  • Gabriele Camera & YiLi Chien, 2012. "Understanding the distributional impact of long-run inflation," Working Papers 2012-058, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedlwp:2012-058
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://research.stlouisfed.org/wp/2012/2012-058.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Miguel Molico, 2006. "The Distribution Of Money And Prices In Search Equilibrium," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 47(3), pages 701-722, August.
    2. Alvarez, Fernando & Jermann, Urban J, 2001. "Quantitative Asset Pricing Implications of Endogenous Solvency Constraints," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 14(4), pages 1117-1151.
    3. Scott J. Dressler, 2011. "Money Holdings, Inflation, And Welfare In A Competitive Market," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 52(2), pages 407-423, May.
    4. Easterly, William & Fischer, Stanley, 2001. "Inflation and the Poor," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 33(2), pages 160-178, May.
    5. Chiu, Jonathan & Molico, Miguel, 2010. "Liquidity, redistribution, and the welfare cost of inflation," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(4), pages 428-438, May.
    6. Erosa, Andres & Ventura, Gustavo, 2002. "On inflation as a regressive consumption tax," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(4), pages 761-795, May.
    7. Michael Grill & Johannes Brumm, 2010. "Computing Equilibria in Dynamic Models with Occasionally Binding Constraints," 2010 Meeting Papers 695, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    8. Imrohoroglu, Ayse, 1992. "The welfare cost of inflation under imperfect insurance," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 16(1), pages 79-91, January.
    9. Akyol, Ahmet, 2004. "Optimal monetary policy in an economy with incomplete markets and idiosyncratic risk," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(6), pages 1245-1269, September.
    10. Imrohoroglu, Selahattin & Kitao, Sagiri, 2009. "Labor supply elasticity and social security reform," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(7-8), pages 867-878, August.
    11. Yili Chien & Harold Cole & Hanno Lustig, 2011. "A Multiplier Approach to Understanding the Macro Implications of Household Finance," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 78(1), pages 199-234.
    12. Boel, Paola & Camera, Gabriele, 2009. "Financial sophistication and the distribution of the welfare cost of inflation," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(7), pages 968-978, October.
    13. Javier Diaz-Gimenez & Andrew Glover & José-Víctor Ríos-Rull, 2011. "Facts on the distributions of earnings, income, and wealth in the United States: 2007 update," Quarterly Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Blog mentions

    As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
    1. Understanding the distributional impact of long-run inflation
      by Christian Zimmermann in NEP-DGE blog on 2012-12-19 03:32:17

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Mehdi el Herradi & Jakob de Haan & Aurélien Leroy, 2020. "Inflation and the Income Share of the Rich: Evidence for 12 OECD Countries," CESifo Working Paper Series 8203, CESifo.
    2. Mehdi El Herradi & Jakob Haan & Aurélien Leroy, 2023. "Inflation and the Income Share of the Rich: Evidence for 14 OECD Countries," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 69(1), pages 170-194, March.
    3. Lilian Muchimba & Mimoza Shabani & Alexis Stenfors & Jan Toporowski, 2024. "Decomposing the Rate of Inflation: Price-Setting and Monetary Policy," Working Papers in Economics & Finance 2024-04, University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth Business School, Economics and Finance Subject Group.
    4. Curran, Michael & Dressler, Scott J., 2020. "Preferences, inflation, and welfare," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 130(C).
    5. Mehmet Balcilar & Shinhye Chang & Rangan Gupta & Stephen M. Miller, 2018. "The relationship between the inflation rate and inequality across U.S. states: a semiparametric approach," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 52(5), pages 2413-2425, September.
    6. Kakar, Venoo, 2014. "On the Redistributional Effects of Long-Run Inflation in a Cash-in-Advance Economy," MPRA Paper 55687, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Yoichi Gokan & Stephen J. Turnovsky, 2021. "Wealth and income inequality in a monetary economy," Economic Theory Bulletin, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 9(2), pages 225-245, October.
    8. Michael Patrick Curran & Scott J. Dressler, 2019. "Preference Heterogeneity, Inflation, and Welfare," Villanova School of Business Department of Economics and Statistics Working Paper Series 40, Villanova School of Business Department of Economics and Statistics.
    9. Abdulaleem Isiaka & Alexander Mihailov & Giovanni Razzi, 2022. "Reallocating Government Spending to Reduce Income Inequality: Panel Data Evidence from the Middle-Income Countries," Economics Discussion Papers em-dp2022-08, Department of Economics, University of Reading.
    10. Hongfei Sun & Chenggang Zhou, 2018. "Monetary and fiscal policies in a heterogeneous‐agent economy," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 51(3), pages 747-783, August.
    11. Paola Boel, 2017. "The Redistributive Effects of Inflation and the Shape of Money Demand," LWS Working papers 25, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    12. Jin, Gu & Zhu, Tao, 2022. "Heterogeneity, decentralized trade, and the long-run real effects of inflation," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 201(C).
    13. YiLi Chien & Yi Wen, 2017. "Optimal Ramsey Capital Income Taxation —A Reappraisal," Working Papers 2017-24, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
    14. Binder, Carola, 2019. "Inequality and the inflation tax," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 1-1.

    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. Kakar, Venoo, 2014. "On the Redistributional Effects of Long-Run Inflation in a Cash-in-Advance Economy," MPRA Paper 55687, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Boel, Paola & Camera, Gabriele, 2009. "Financial sophistication and the distribution of the welfare cost of inflation," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(7), pages 968-978, October.
    3. Sunel, Enes, 2010. "On inflation, wealth inequality and welfare in emerging economies," MPRA Paper 25943, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Oscar Afonso, 2023. "Losers and losses of COVID-19: a directed technical change analysis with fiscal and monetary policies," Economic Change and Restructuring, Springer, vol. 56(3), pages 1777-1821, June.
    5. Jin, Gu & Zhu, Tao, 2022. "Heterogeneity, decentralized trade, and the long-run real effects of inflation," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 201(C).
    6. Hongfei Sun & Chenggang Zhou, 2018. "Monetary and fiscal policies in a heterogeneous‐agent economy," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 51(3), pages 747-783, August.
    7. Ragot, Xavier, 2014. "The case for a financial approach to money demand," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 94-107.
    8. Sunel, Enes, 2012. "Transitional Dynamics of Disinflation in a Small Open Economy with Heterogeneous Agents," MPRA Paper 39690, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Óscar Afonso, 2022. "Growth and wage effects of the monetary policy," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 27(4), pages 4058-4084, October.
    10. Jonathan Chiu & Miguel Molico, 2011. "Uncertainty, Inflation, and Welfare," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 43, pages 487-512, October.
    11. Boel, Paola, 2018. "The redistributive effects of inflation and the shape of money demand," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 208-219.
    12. Antinolfi, Gaetano & Azariadis, Costas & Bullard, James, 2016. "The Optimal Inflation Target In An Economy With Limited Enforcement," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 20(2), pages 582-600, March.
    13. Olivier Allais & Yann Algan & Edouard Challe & Xavier Ragot, 2020. "The Welfare Cost of Inflation Risk under Imperfect Insurance," Annals of Economics and Statistics, GENES, issue 138, pages 1-20.
    14. Nils M. Gornemann & Keith Kuester & Makoto Nakajima, 2012. "Monetary policy with heterogeneous agents," Working Papers 12-21, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.
    15. Jonathan Heathcote & Kjetil Storesletten & Giovanni L. Violante, 2009. "Quantitative Macroeconomics with Heterogeneous Households," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 1(1), pages 319-354, May.
    16. Kim, Dong-Hyeon & Lin, Shu-Chin, 2023. "Income inequality, inflation and financial development," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 468-487.
    17. Yann Algan & Xavier Ragot, 2005. "Monetary policy with heterogenous agents and credit constraints," PSE Working Papers halshs-00590565, HAL.
    18. Rocheteau, Guillaume & Weill, Pierre-Olivier & Wong, Russell, 2018. "A tractable model of monetary exchange with ex-post heterogeneity," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 13(3), September.
    19. Yann Algan & Edouard Challe & Xavier Ragot, 2011. "Incomplete markets and the output–inflation tradeoff," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 46(1), pages 55-84, January.
    20. Wai-Yip Alex Ho & Chun-Yu Ho, 2016. "Inflation, Financial Developments, and Wealth Distribution," IMF Working Papers 2016/132, International Monetary Fund.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Inflation (Finance);

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:fip:fedlwp:2012-058. 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: Anna Oates (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/frbslus.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.