Time Aggregation and the Relationship between Inflation and Money Growth

Using panel data for 99 countries, we confirm that the measured elasticity of prices with respect to money is higher, and closer to unity, the higher is money growth and the longer the time horizon over which the data are averaged. We propose two explanations. In one, the true model of inflation involves a lagged response to money growth. In the other, there is negative correlation between shocks to inflation and money growth. Our empirical results can be explained if high–money‐growth countries have (i) shorter lags or (ii) less negative correlation, when compared to countries with low money growth.     

Tight money and inflation: Further Results

The Sargent-Wallace results on inflationary effects of monetary restraint are considered in a Sidrauski money growth model when the utility function is unrestricted except for separability. Temporary monetary tightening will eventually lead to higher inflation when the deficit is fixed only if the elasticity of money demand with respect to the money growth rate is less than unity. It is also shown that for inflation to rise immediately further requires the elasticity with respect to the nominal interest rate to be no less than unity.     

Revenue maximizing inflation

A classic monetary policy result is that revenue maximization entails setting the inflation tax rate equal to the inverse of the interest semi-elasticity of the demand for money. The standard approach underlying “Cagan's rule” is partial equilibrium in nature, treating money demand as being given from outside the model and abstracting from the real effects of inflation. This paper reconsiders the question of the revenue maximizing inflation rate in a general equilibrium framework with a labor-leisure choice, where money is held because it reduces transactions costs. In this framework, the revenue maximizing inflation tax rate is lower than that implied by Cagan's rule.     

Asset Pricing and Expected Inflation

This paper provides an equilibrium model in which expected real returns on common stocks are negatively related to expected inflation and money growth. It is shown that the fall in real wealth associated with an increase in expected inflation decreases the real rate of interest and the expected real rate of return of the market portfolio. The expected real rate of return of the market portfolio falls less, for a given increase in expected inflation, when the increase in expected inflation is caused by an increase in money growth rather than by a worsening of the investment opportunity set. The model has empirical implications for the effect of a change in expected inflation on the cross-sectional distribution of asset returns and can help to understand why assets whose return covaries positively with expected inflation may have lower expected returns. The model also agrees with explanations advanced by Fama [5] and Geske and Roll [10] for the negative relation between stock returns and inflation.     

数量规则还是利率规则？——我国转型时期量价混合型货币规则的理论基础

本文对我国货币政策转型时期兼顾数量和价格的货币政策调控实践进行了深入的分析。在货币数量论和货币效用模型的基础上,从理论上阐明了货币数量规则与利率价格规则的等价关系,并构建了符合中国货币政策实践的数量与价格混合型货币政策规则。这对于更好地理解我国货币政策转型时期的量价混合型货币政策操作具有重要的理论和现实意义。相关推论表明,正是由于数量和价格混合型货币规则,在利率低于均衡水平的情形下,中国的货币增速并未引发恶性通胀;修正的物价稳定泰勒原理表明,利率调整幅度小于通胀变化仍能够实现物价稳定。对中国的经验分析支持了理论和推论结果。在利率市场化基本完成和流动性格局逆转的当下,货币政策价格调控方式转型的必要性和迫切性日益上升,转型的条件日趋成熟。     

Why Money Growth Determines Inflation in the Long Run: Answering the Woodford Critique

Woodford argues that it is not appropriate to regard inflation in the steady state of New Keynesian models as determined by steady‐state money growth. Woodford instead argues that the intercept term in the monetary authority's interest rate policy rule determines steady‐state inflation. In this paper, I offer an alternative interpretation of steady‐state behavior, according to which it is appropriate to regard steady‐state inflation as determined by steady‐state money growth. The argument relies on traditional interpretations of the central bank's power in the long run and appeals to model properties that are common to textbook and New Keynesian analysis. According to this argument, the only way the central bank can control interest rates in the long run is via affecting inflation, and its only means available for determining inflation is by determining the money growth rate.     

Inflation dynamics: A cross-country investigation

We document that “persistent and lagged” inflation (with respect to output) is a world-wide phenomenon in that these short-run inflation dynamics are highly synchronized across countries. In particular, the average cross-country correlation of inflation is significantly and systematically stronger than that of output, while the cross-country correlation of money growth is essentially zero. We investigate whether standard monetary models driven by monetary shocks are consistent with the empirical facts. We find that neither the new Keynesian sticky-price model nor the sticky-information model can fully explain the data. An independent contribution of the paper is to provide a simple solution technique for solving general equilibrium models with sticky information.     

Inflation and Asset Returns in a Monetary Economy

Postwar U.S. data are characterized by negative correlations between real equity returns and inflation and by positive correlations between real equity returns and money growth. These patterns are closely matched quantitatively by an equilibrium monetary asset pricing model. The model also implies negative correlations between expected asset returns and expected inflation, and it predicts that the inflation-asset return correlation will be more strongly negative when inflation is generated by fluctuations in real economic activity than when it is generated by monetary fluctuations.     

Discounting expected values with parameter uncertainty

In valuing future cash flows, the standard practice is to take the current cash flow and then extrapolate at an expected growth rate, which can vary at different points in time. This practice stems from the standard way of dealing with time value of money problems under certainty. However, with uncertain cash flows, this practice underestimates the expected cash flows when the growth rates are serially correlated. As a result, both value and the equity cost, calculated as an internal rate of return, are biased low. Given the prevalence of serial correlation in the economy, this paper demonstrates how to incorporate the effects of serial correlation in a simple way and demonstrates by way of a simulation that the effects can be significant. As a result, it casts doubt on the usefulness of several standard valuation approaches and results.     

Rules,discretion and reputation in a model of monetary policy

In a discretionary regime the monetary authority can print more money and create more inflation than people expect. But, although these inflation surprises can have some benefits, they cannot arise systematically in equilibrium when people understand the policymaker's incentives and form their expectations accordingly. Because the policymaker has the power to create inflation shocks ex post, the equilibrium growth rates of money and prices turn out to be higher than otherwise. Therefore, enforced commitments (rules) for monetary behavior can improve matters. Given the repeated interaction between the policymaker and the private agents, it is possible that reputational forces can substitute for formal rules. Here, we develop an example of a reputational equilibrium where the outcomes turn out to be weighted averages of those from discretion and those from the ideal rule. In particular, the rates of inflation and monetary growth look more like those under discretion when the discount rate is high.     

Inflation and output dynamics with state-dependent pricing decisions

This paper studies a state-dependent pricing model in which firms face a fixed cost of changing their pricing plans. A pricing plan specifies an entire sequence of time-varying future prices. Allowing firms to choose a pricing plan rather than a single price generates inflation inertia in the response of the economy to small changes in the growth rate of money. Allowing firms to choose when to change their pricing plan generates a non-linear response of inflation and output to small and large changes in the money growth rate. The non-linear solution method also reveals that the model generates an asymmetric response of output and inflation to monetary expansions and contractions.     

数量规则还是利率规则？——我国转型时期量价混合型货币规则的理论基础

本文对我国货币政策转型时期兼顾数量和价格的货币政策调控实践进行了深入的分析。在货币数量论和货币效用模型的基础上,从理论上阐明了货币数量规则与利率价格规则的等价关系,并构建了符合中国货币政策实践的数量与价格混合型货币政策规则。这对于更好地理解我国货币政策转型时期的量价混合型货币政策操作具有重要的理论和现实意义。相关推论表明,正是由于数量和价格混合型货币规则,在利率低于均衡水平的情形下,中国的货币增速并未引发恶性通胀;修正的物价稳定泰勒原理表明,利率调整幅度小于通胀变化仍能够实现物价稳定。对中国的经验分析支持了理论和推论结果。在利率市场化基本完成和流动性格局逆转的当下,货币政策价格调控方式转型的必要性和迫切性日益上升,转型的条件日趋成熟。     

Decomposition of inflation and its volatility: A stochastic approach

This paper presents a decomposition of inflation and its volatility. According to the traditional quantity theory of money, the rate of inflation is decomposed into three components: the rate of change in the money supply, plus the rate of change in the velocity of circulation, minus the rate of change in real output. We derive a generalization of this decomposition by postulating that the rate of change of money supply, velocity, and output follow diffusion equations. Using stochastic calculus techniques, two expressions are obtained decomposing inflation and its volatility as a sum of several economically important terms. We also use two sets of U.S. data to illustrate these decompositions with actual numbers.     

Linkages between the ADR market and home country macroeconomic fundamentals: Evidence in the context of the BRICs

This study investigates the long-run and short-run lead–lag linkages between American Depositary Receipt (ADR) prices and home country economic fundamentals in the context of the BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India and China). In order to obtain an indication of the segmentation or integration between the ADR market and its underlying stock market, the same investigation is also undertaken in relation to the latter. We find that in the long run, economic growth positively drives ADR returns in the cases of Brazil and China but negatively in the cases of Russia and India. In the short-run, economic growth and money supply lead ADR prices but ADR prices predict inflation and oil prices with regard to Brazil while in Russia, oil prices predict ADR returns but the ADR market leads monetary policies and real economic activity. As regards India, in the short run, oil prices and economic growth lead ADR prices but ADR prices predict money supply changes. Finally, with respect to China, the ADR index lead economic growth and inflation but economic variables do not predict ADR prices in the short-run. In the long run, with the exception of China, we find the same kind of linkages between these economic fundamentals and the underlying stock market although the linkages are somewhat stronger. The short run dynamics for ADRs with respect to economic fundamentals are, however, different for that of the respective home country stock market. This would imply that the ADR market and its underlying stock market, as far as the BRICs are concerned, are integrated in the long-run but not in the short-run.     

How Important Is Money in the Conduct of Monetary Policy?

I consider some of the leading arguments for assigning an important role to tracking the growth of monetary aggregates when making decisions about monetary policy. First, I consider whether ignoring money means returning to the conceptual framework that allowed the high inflation of the 1970s. Second, I consider whether models of inflation determination with no role for money are incomplete, or inconsistent with elementary economic principles. Third, I consider the implications for monetary policy strategy of the empirical evidence for a long‐run relationship between money growth and inflation. And fourth, I consider reasons why a monetary policy strategy based solely on short‐run inflation forecasts derived from a Phillips curve may not be a reliable way of controlling inflation. I argue that none of these considerations provides a compelling reason to assign a prominent role to monetary aggregates in the conduct of monetary policy.     

Fiscal Requirements for Dynamic and Real Determinacies in Economies with Private Provision of Liquidity: A Monetarist Assessment

We study the impact of fiscal policies on the inherent links between inflation, unemployment, and asset prices in an environment where firms provide liquidity and the central bank follows a constant money growth rate rule. Firms, other than hiring workers, also supply private assets that are not only useful as a store of value but also as collateral. When firms are not taxed and public debt is scarce, the economy is non-Ricardian so that real indeterminacies can be observed. Moreover, labor market characteristics do not affect the demand for government liabilities. However, when agents face public and private asset scarcity, labor market conditions then impact asset prices and inflation. We further show that irrespective of the type of asset scarcity agents face, when firms are taxed non-ad valorem, not only the level of tax revenues but also its composition matter for real allocations. Moreover, we show that labor market conditions directly affect the dynamics of all government liabilities and inflation.     

Inflation at the household level

We use scanner data to estimate inflation rates at the household level. Households’ inflation rates have an annual interquartile range of 6.2–9.0 percentage points. Most of the heterogeneity comes not from variation in broadly defined consumption bundles but from variation in prices paid for the same types of goods. Lower-income households experience higher inflation, but most cross-sectional variation is uncorrelated with observables. Households’ deviations from aggregate inflation exhibit only slightly negative serial correlation. Almost all variability in a household’s inflation rate comes from variability in household-level prices relative to average prices, not from variability in aggregate inflation.     

货币超发是中国通货膨胀的根源吗?——基于DSGE模型不确定均衡解的分析

本文构建了一个充分反映中国宏观经济结构和体制特征的DSGE模型,并用贝叶斯估计方法对模型进行了估计和分析。我们发现,中国宏观经济存在非确定均衡解,自我实现的通胀预期对中国通货膨胀和产出波动有显著的影响,逆向供给冲击是近年来中国通货膨胀的主要原因。通过反事实模拟方法,我们发现近年来我国央行实施的实际货币政策基本符合最优货币政策,我们还估算中国货币增长长期目标的适度水平为18%左右,过高或过低的货币增长率都会加大消费和通货膨胀的波动,并降低社会的长期福利水平。     

Interwar Inflation,Unexpected Inflation,and Output Growth

Interwar macroeconomic history is a natural place to look for evidence on the correlation between output growth and inflation or unexpected inflation. We apply time‐series methods to measure unexpected inflation for more than 20 countries using both retail and wholesale prices. There is a significant, positive correlation between output growth and inflation for the entire period. There is little evidence that this correlation is caused by an underlying role for unexpected inflation. For wholesale price inflation in particular, the output declines associated with deflations were larger than the output increases associated with inflations of the same scale.