A Study in the Theory of Inflation


Book Description

This book, originally published in 1951, is a theoretical study inspired by some central economic problems which have appeared during and after the Second World War in many countries, including Scandinavia. It develops a monetary theory for repressed inflation, gives a number of definitions and concepts and explains the connection between the concepts. The investigation of the problems of repressed inflatin also serve as an introduction to the study of open inflation.




Classical Theories of Money, Output and Inflation


Book Description

This book challenges the conventional view that monetarism is a necessary part of classical economics and shows, in an historical account of monetary controversy, that the framework upon which classical analysis is based suggests an alternative account of the inflationary process. A corollary of the argument is that the monetarist approach is a logically necessary component of neoclassical analysis and that any attempt to criticise that approach in a fundamental way must involve an explicit rejection of the conceptual structure of neoclassical economics.




The Theory of Inflation


Book Description

The Theory of Inflation presents in one volume a comprehensive description of the historical inflation record, surveys the current state of knowledge on the fundamental forces that cause inflation and the mechanisms that propagate it, and examines the costs of inflation and the problems of achieving price stability.




A Study in the Theory of Inflation


Book Description

This book, originally published in 1951, is a theoretical study inspired by some central economic problems which have appeared during and after the Second World War in many countries, including Scandinavia. It develops a monetary theory for repressed inflation, gives a number of definitions and concepts and explains the connection between the concepts. The investigation of the problems of repressed inflatin also serve as an introduction to the study of open inflation.




Value and Crisis: Essays on Labour, Money and Contemporary Capitalism


Book Description

Value and Crisis brings together selected essays written by Alfredo Saad-Filho, one of the most prominent Marxist political economists today. This book examines the labour theory of value from a rich and innovative perspective, from which fresh insights and new perspectives are derived, with applications for the nature of neoliberalism, financialisation, inflation, monetary policy, and the contradictions, limitations and crises of contemporary capitalism.




The Great Inflation


Book Description

Controlling inflation is among the most important objectives of economic policy. By maintaining price stability, policy makers are able to reduce uncertainty, improve price-monitoring mechanisms, and facilitate more efficient planning and allocation of resources, thereby raising productivity. This volume focuses on understanding the causes of the Great Inflation of the 1970s and ’80s, which saw rising inflation in many nations, and which propelled interest rates across the developing world into the double digits. In the decades since, the immediate cause of the period’s rise in inflation has been the subject of considerable debate. Among the areas of contention are the role of monetary policy in driving inflation and the implications this had both for policy design and for evaluating the performance of those who set the policy. Here, contributors map monetary policy from the 1960s to the present, shedding light on the ways in which the lessons of the Great Inflation were absorbed and applied to today’s global and increasingly complex economic environment.




Inflation Expectations


Book Description

Inflation is regarded by the many as a menace that damages business and can only make life worse for households. Keeping it low depends critically on ensuring that firms and workers expect it to be low. So expectations of inflation are a key influence on national economic welfare. This collection pulls together a galaxy of world experts (including Roy Batchelor, Richard Curtin and Staffan Linden) on inflation expectations to debate different aspects of the issues involved. The main focus of the volume is on likely inflation developments. A number of factors have led practitioners and academic observers of monetary policy to place increasing emphasis recently on inflation expectations. One is the spread of inflation targeting, invented in New Zealand over 15 years ago, but now encompassing many important economies including Brazil, Canada, Israel and Great Britain. Even more significantly, the European Central Bank, the Bank of Japan and the United States Federal Bank are the leading members of another group of monetary institutions all considering or implementing moves in the same direction. A second is the large reduction in actual inflation that has been observed in most countries over the past decade or so. These considerations underscore the critical – and largely underrecognized - importance of inflation expectations. They emphasize the importance of the issues, and the great need for a volume that offers a clear, systematic treatment of them. This book, under the steely editorship of Peter Sinclair, should prove very important for policy makers and monetary economists alike.




Eternal Inflation


Book Description

In this book, I discuss the long-standing technical and conceptual problems arising within the statistical framework describing models of cosmological inflation, known collectively as the "measure problem" in multiverse cosmology. After reviewing various existing approaches and mathematical techniques developed in the past two decades for studying these issues, I describe a new proposal for a measure in the multiverse, called the reheating-volume (RV) measure. The RV measure is based on approximating an infinite multiverse by a family of progressively larger but finite multiverses. I give a detailed description of the new measure and its applications to generic models of eternal inflation of random-walk type and to landscape scenarios. The RV prescription is formulated differently for scenarios with eternal inflation of the random walk type and for landscape scenarios. I derive analytic formulas for RV-regulated probability distributions that is suitable for numerical computations.




Reducing Inflation


Book Description

While there is ample evidence that high inflation is harmful, little is known about how best to reduce inflation or how far it should be reduced. In this volume, sixteen distinguished economists analyze the appropriateness of low inflation as a goal for monetary policy and discuss possible strategies for reducing inflation. Section I discusses the consequences of inflation. These papers analyze inflation's impact on the tax system, labor market flexibility, equilibrium unemployment, and the public's sense of well-being. Section II considers the obstacles facing central bankers in achieving low inflation. These papers study the precision of estimates of equilibrium unemployment, the sources of the high inflation of the 1970s, and the use of non-traditional indicators in policy formation. The papers in section III consider how institutions can be designed to promote successful monetary policy, and the importance of institutions to the performance of policy in the United States, Germany, and other countries. This timely volume should be read by anyone who studies or conducts monetary policy.




The Conquest of American Inflation


Book Description

In The Conquest of American Inflation, Thomas J. Sargent presents an analysis of the rise and fall of U.S. inflation after 1960. He examines two broad explanations for the behavior of inflation and unemployment in this period: the natural rate hypothesis joined to the Lucas critique and a more traditional econometric policy evaluation modified to include adaptive expectations and learning. His purpose is not only to determine which is the better account, but also to codify for the benefit of the next generation the economic forces that cause inflation. Providing an original methodological link between theoretical and policy economics, this book will engender much debate and become an indispensable text for academics, graduate students, and professional economists.