INFLATION,OUTPUT, AND WELFARE*

We study the effects of anticipated inflation on aggregate output and welfare within a search‐theoretic framework. We consider two pricing mechanisms: ex post bargaining and a notion of competitive pricing. Under bargaining, the equilibrium is generically inefficient and an increase in inflation reduces buyers' search intensities, output, and welfare. If prices are posted and buyers can direct their search, search intensities are increasing with inflation for low inflation rates and decreasing for high inflation rates. The Friedman rule achieves the efficient allocation, and inflation always reduces welfare, although it can have a positive effect on output for low inflation rates.     

MARKET POWER,PRICE ADJUSTMENT,AND INFLATION*

We study a monetary search economy in which endogenous fluctuations in market power driven by changes in consumers' search intensity determine the extent of price adjustment to movements in productivity and the money growth rate. A calibrated version of the economy exhibits countercyclical fluctuations in markups and is consistent with the observed incomplete response of nominal prices to cost movements associated with productivity fluctuations and to changes in the money growth rate. Furthermore, a higher average rate of inflation results in a lower average markup and increases the sensitivity of prices to fluctuations in either productivity or money growth.     

CONSUMER SEARCH,PRICE DISPERSION,AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIVE PRICE FLUCTUATIONS*

This article develops a model of consumer search consistent with the evidence of substantial price dispersion and time spent shopping within countries to study international deviations from the law of one price (LOP) and relative price fluctuations. Search frictions lead firms to price discriminate across markets based on the opportunity cost of search, which depends on the local wage. With productivity and taste shocks estimated from the data, deviations from the LOP are as volatile and persistent as in the data. Fluctuations in relative wages, real exchange rates, and the terms of trade are also consistent with the data.     

INFLATION AND THE DISPERSION OF REAL WAGES*

The article studies the effects of inflation on real wage dispersion in a search‐monetary framework. The economy is characterized by frictions in both the goods and the labor markets. In the goods market, buyers and sellers bargain over prices, whereas in the labor market firms post wage offers. In equilibrium, a lower inflation rate increases the dispersion of real wages. This result is consistent with both the observed trends in wage dispersion and the inflation rate witnessed in the 1980s and the 1990s in the United States and the empirical literature linking reduced inflation to greater wage dispersion.     

WELFARE COSTS OF SHIFTING TREND INFLATION: STAGGERED WAGE AND PRICE CONTRACTS

We develop a New Keynesian model featuring staggered price and wage contracts to study welfare costs of exogenous variations in trend inflation. The analyses show that the consequences of constant positive trend inflation and shifting trend inflation are severe, especially when trend inflation is high. Among two channels, staggered wage contracts play a vital role in transmitting adverse impacts of constant and shifting trend inflation into the economy. Without the staggered wage channel, these costs are modest. We also conduct exercises to examine the sensitivity of welfare costs to a wide range of plausible parameters. The results show that if the price and wage friction are sufficiently large, the price and wage indexation level are sufficiently small, or there is upward biased trend inflation process, the welfare costs become larger.     

MONEY HOLDINGS,INFLATION, AND WELFARE IN A COMPETITIVE MARKET*

This article examines an environment where money is essential and agents exchange in perfectly competitive, Walrasian markets. Agents consume and produce a homogeneous good, but hold money to purchase consumption in the event of a relatively low productivity shock. A Walrasian market delivers a nondegenerate distribution of money holdings across agents and avoids some of the computational difficulties associated with the market assumption of bilateral bargaining common to search‐theoretic environments. The model is calibrated to long‐run U.S. velocity, and the welfare costs of inflation are assessed for variable buyer–seller ratios and persistent states of buying and selling.     

通货膨胀、政府收益与社会福利损失

传统"Cagan规则"认为,政府通货膨胀税收益最大化的条件是,通货膨胀率应该为(货币需求关于)利率半弹性的倒数。这一规则是局部均衡条件下的结果,并未考虑通胀的实际经济效应。本文基于交易成本方法在一般均衡框架内讨论收益最大化时通货膨胀率的决定问题。该框架中收益最大化的通货膨胀率小于Ca-gan规则值,这一结论得到了中国1945—1949年恶性通胀时期经验数据的支持。经验结果还表明,相对于Cagan规则,根据交易成本方法设定的通货膨胀率尽管并没有明显提高政府的通货膨胀税收益,却大幅降低了社会福利损失。     

SIMULTANEOUS PRICE CHANGES,INFORMATION ACQUISITION ON COMMON COMPETITORS AND WELFARE*

We investigate a model where two firms choose whether to acquire information on a common competitor. We find that strategic complementarity on information acquisition exists, yielding multiple equilibria. In addition, we investigate welfare implication of information acquisition. We find that information acquisition reduces both consumer surplus and the total profits of the firms.     

价格信息成本与价格离中现象

该文在Varian(1980)中引入消费者价格信息成本和信息成本的分布,采用Janssen和Moraga(2000)的对称混合策略均衡定义,同时内生化了消费者的信息行为和厂商的定价行为,确定了Varian(1980)中的知情消费者比例,证明了厂商定价正期望利润均衡的存在性.该文证明了,在不完全价格信息条件下,市场普遍存在知情消费者,从而该文加强了Varian(1980)的结论.     

A COMMENT ON “PRICE DISPERSION,INFLATION, AND WELFARE” BY A. HEAD AND A. KUMAR*

The principal results of Head and Kumar's article are derived under the natural assumption that the number of price offers received per period by buyers is distributed Poisson. This case is of interest for two reasons. First, because the infinite sums and integrals that enter the equilibrium conditions can be solved in closed form, the derivations of the model's implications are straightforward. Second, by regarding the arrival rate as the relevant measure of search intensity, the analysis of endogenous search effort is simplified.     

STAGGERED PRICE CONTRACTS AND INFLATION PERSISTENCE: SOME GENERAL RESULTS*

Despite their popularity as theoretical tools for illustrating the effects of nominal rigidities, some have questioned whether models based on staggered price contracts with rational expectations can match the persistence of the empirical inflation process. This article presents some general results about this class of models. It is shown that these models do not have a problem matching high autocorrelations for inflation. However, they fail to explain a key feature of reduced‐form Phillips‐curve regressions: The positive dependence of inflation on its own lags. It is shown that staggered price contracting models instead predict that the coefficients on these lag terms should be negative.     

INCOME DISPERSION AND PRICE DISCRIMINATION

Abstract.  This paper analyses the effects of inter-market and intra-market income heterogeneities on output and social welfare under uniform pricing and differential pricing regimes by considering a finite number of markets. We first derive the linear demand curve in each market under plausible conditions, and then show that more markets (and consumers) are excluded under uniform pricing the higher are the inter-market income differences. We also show that adding markets, even of lower income levels than those of existing markets, helps to decrease prices and thus cause more markets to be served. Implications of intra-market income dispersion are also explored.     

ENDOGENOUS TIMING IN A MIXED DUOPOLY: WEIGHTED WELFARE AND PRICE COMPETITION*

In this paper we analyse the endogenous order of moves in a mixed duopoly for differentiated goods. Firms choose whether to set prices sequentially or simultaneously. The private firm maximises profits while the public firm maximises the weighted sum of the consumer and producer surpluses (weighted welfare). It is shown that the result obtained in equilibrium depends crucially on the weight given to the consumer surplus in weighted welfare and on the degree to which goods are substitutes or complements. We also analyse whether the equilibria obtained maximise the sum of the consumer and producer surpluses or not. Finally we study whether the nationality of the private firm influences the results.     

DEPRIVATION,INEQUALITY AND WELFARE*

Welfare ranking of income distributions involves a trade‐off between equity and efficiency. A person's feeling of deprivation about higher incomes may be of a relative or absolute type. We consider an intermediate notion of deprivation, a convex mix of relative and absolute deprivations. We then look at the problem of welfare ranking of income distributions when welfare increases under a globally equitable redistribution and under an income increase that keeps intermediate deprivation fixed. All deprivation indices can be regarded as inequality indices but the converse is not true. We also provide a numerical illustration of our results.     

INFLATION AND VARIETY*

Economies undergoing high inflation often experience a reduction of product variety in the marketplace. Existing models study how inflation affects quantity, but very few have studied how inflation affects variety. In a monetary model with explicit microfoundations, I analyze how inflation affects variety as well as quantity. I consider two pricing mechanisms—bargaining and price posting with directed search. I show that inflation reduces both quantity and variety under both pricing mechanisms. Quantitatively, the model implies that the total welfare cost of 10% inflation ranges from 4.77% to 8.4% under bargaining and is 1.52% under price posting.     

PRICE AND WELFARE EFFECTS OF OLIGOPOUSTIC MERGERS

When oligopolists merge, the new firm enjoys a lower cost structure than any of its premerger constituent parts. This is because of rationalization economies which are created as facilities previously operated at disparate marginal cost levels come under common control. The resultant price-decreasing force is countered by the loss of competition due to the merger. The latter can stem not only from reduction in the number of competitors, but also from the possibility that, with a more concentrated market structure, firms'conjectures about each others'reactions will move in the direction of being more cooperative. The paper shows that, under normal conditions, the effects of diminished competition outweigh those of rationalization so that a price increase will result from the merger. In addition, the equivalence of merger to the imposition of taxes is exploited to derive a market-share based test for mergers to cause welfare decreases. This complements a test proposed by Farrell and Shapiro that works only for welfare increases.