IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/sad/wpaper/165.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Global Distributive Impact of the US Inflation Shock

Author

Listed:
  • Gautam Nair

    (John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University)

  • Federico Sturzenegger

    (Universidad de San Andres and Harvard Kennedy School)

Abstract

We study the global distributive consequences of the “Great Reflation.” The conven-tional wisdom holds that the increases in interest rates resulting from high inflation in the United States will have a negative impact on the rest of the world (and developing countries in particular) due to the reversal of capital flows and higher financing costs. We show that the standard view fails to take into account an important countervailing force: the effect of higher US inflation on the changing real value of nominal US dollar assets and liabilities across countries. Decades of low inflation led to widespread use of dollar-denominated financial instruments with fixed interest rates and long maturi-ties. Unanticipated inflation in the US diminishes the real value of dollar-denominated sovereign debt, both in the US and abroad. For sovereigns other than the US, the gains are equivalent to a debt relief of about $100 billion. On the other hand, the US government gains nearly $2 trillion on its debt and cash liabilities, of which fully one-quarter (over $500 billion) is paid by non-residents.

Suggested Citation

  • Gautam Nair & Federico Sturzenegger, 2022. "The Global Distributive Impact of the US Inflation Shock," Working Papers 165, Universidad de San Andres, Departamento de Economia, revised Aug 2022.
    • Handle: RePEc:sad:wpaper:165
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://webacademicos.udesa.edu.ar/pub/econ/doc165.pdf
    File Function: First version, July 2022. This version, August 2022.
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Sosa-Padilla, César & Sturzenegger, Federico, 2023. "Does it matter how central banks accumulate reserves? Evidence from sovereign spreads," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 140(C).
    2. Alan M. Taylor & Mark P. Taylor, 2004. "The Purchasing Power Parity Debate," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 18(4), pages 135-158, Fall.
    3. Ballard-Rosa, Cameron & Mosley, Layna & Wellhausen, Rachel L, 2021. "Contingent Advantage? Sovereign Borrowing, Democratic Institutions and Global Capital Cycles," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 51(1), pages 353-373, January.
    4. Pazarbasioglu, Ceyla & Reinhart, Carmen, 2022. "Shining a Light on Debt," MPRA Paper 117566, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 01 Mar 2022.
    5. Eren, Egemen & Malamud, Semyon, 2022. "Dominant currency debt," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 144(2), pages 571-589.
    6. Judson, Ruth, 2017. "The Death of Cash? Not So Fast: Demand for U.S. Currency at Home and Abroad, 1990-2016," International Cash Conference 2017 – War on Cash: Is there a Future for Cash? 162910, Deutsche Bundesbank.
    7. Calvo, Guillermo A, 1988. "Servicing the Public Debt: The Role of Expectations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 78(4), pages 647-661, September.
    8. Barry Eichengreen & Ricardo Hausmann, 1999. "Exchange rates and financial fragility," Proceedings - Economic Policy Symposium - Jackson Hole, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, pages 329-368.
    9. Alan M. Taylor & Mark P. Taylor, 2004. "The Purchasing Power Parity Debate," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 18(4), pages 135-158, Fall.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Gautam Nair & Federico Sturzenegger, 2022. "The Global Distributive Impact of the US Inflation Shock," Working Papers 160, Red Nacional de Investigadores en Economía (RedNIE).
    2. Roberto Frankel & Martín Rapetti, 2010. "A Concise History of Exchange Rate Regimes in Latin America," CEPR Reports and Issue Briefs 2010-11, Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR).
    3. Levent, Korap, 2007. "Modeling purchasing power parity using co-integration: evidence from Turkey," MPRA Paper 19584, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Gürkaynak, Refet S. & Kısacıkoğlu, Burçin & Lee, Sang Seok, 2022. "Exchange rate and inflation under weak monetary policy: Turkey verifies theory," CFS Working Paper Series 679, Center for Financial Studies (CFS).
    5. Mohsen Bahmani-Oskooee & Tsangyao Chang & Kuei-Chiu Lee, 2016. "Panel asymmetric nonlinear unit root test and PPP in Africa," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 23(8), pages 554-558, May.
    6. Zanin, Luca & Marra, Giampiero, 2012. "Assessing the functional relationship between CO2 emissions and economic development using an additive mixed model approach," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 29(4), pages 1328-1337.
    7. Balázs Égert, 2007. "Real Convergence, Price Level Convergence and Inflation in Europe," Working Papers 267, Bruegel.
    8. Simões, Oscar R. & Marçal, Emerson Fernandes, 2012. "Agregação temporal e não-linearidade afetam os testes da paridade do poder de compra: Evidência a partir de dados brasileiros," Revista Brasileira de Economia - RBE, EPGE Brazilian School of Economics and Finance - FGV EPGE (Brazil), vol. 66(3), October.
    9. Franses, Ph.H.B.F. & van Dijk, D.J.C., 2002. "A simple test for PPP among traded goods," Econometric Institute Research Papers EI 2002-02, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Erasmus School of Economics (ESE), Econometric Institute.
    10. Deng, Kent & O'Brien, Patrick, 2021. "The Kuznetsian paradigm for the study of modern economic history and the Great Divergence with appendices of literature review and statistical data," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 108563, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    11. Grubb, Farley, 2010. "Testing for the Economic Impact of the U.S. Constitution: Purchasing Power Parity Across the Colonies versus Across the States, 1748–1811," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 70(1), pages 118-145, March.
    12. Liew, Venus Khim-Sen & Baharumshah, Ahmad Zubaidi & Habibullah, Muzafar Shah & Midi, Habshah, 2008. "Monetary exchange rate model: supportive evidence from nonlinear testing procedures," MPRA Paper 7293, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    13. Marco Bassetto & Carlo Galli, 2019. "Is Inflation Default? The Role of Information in Debt Crises," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(10), pages 3556-3584, October.
    14. Georgios Chortareas & George Kapetanios, 2013. "How Puzzling Is The Ppp Puzzle? An Alternative Half‐Life Measure Of Convergence To Ppp," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 28(3), pages 435-457, April.
    15. Grossmann, Axel & Kim, Jintae, 2022. "The impact of U.S. dollar movements and U.S. dollar states on non-perishable commodity prices," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 61(C).
    16. Donatella Gatti & Christophe Rault & Anne-Gael Vaubourg, 2012. "Unemployment and finance: how do financial and labour market factors interact?," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 64(3), pages 464-489, July.
    17. Ahmad, Yamin S., 2008. "The effects of small sample bias in Threshold Autoregressive models," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 101(1), pages 6-8, October.
    18. Fernando A. Broner & Guido Lorenzoni & Sergio L. Schmukler, 2013. "Why Do Emerging Economies Borrow Short Term?," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 11, pages 67-100, January.
    19. Lukas Menkhoff & Rafael Rebitzky & Michael Schroder, 2008. "Do dollar forecasters believe too much in PPP?," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 40(3), pages 261-270.
    20. Robert A. Blecker, 2009. "Long-Run Growth in Open Economies: Export-Led Cumulative Causation or a Balance-of-Payments Constraint?," Working Papers 2009-23, American University, Department of Economics.

    More about this item

    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:sad:wpaper:165. 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: Maria Amelia Gibbons (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/desanar.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.