Money, Inflation, and Capital Formation


Book Description

This book is a slightly revised version of my doctoral thesis which I wrote during my time as an assistant at the Faculty of Economics of the University of Magdeburg. I am grateful that I had the opportunity to write my the sis in the stimulating atmosphere of this young and lively faculty. lowe a great amount of gratitude to my supervisor Prof. G. Schwodiauer who con stantly encouraged my work and helped to improve it in many discussions. I also would like to thank Prof. K-H. Paque and Prof. P. Flaschel who, as members of my doctoral committee, commented on various details of this study in a very constructive manner. At various stages of my work I received helpful comments from many colleagues of mine, in particular T. Konig and A. Wohrmann. However, it goes without saying that I retain full responsi bility for all remaining errors. Contents Introduction 1 I Money, inflation, and capital formation in the long run: general remarks 5 1 Summary of the literature: theoretical aspects 7 2 Summary of the literature: empirical aspects 19 3 Further reflections on money 29 II Money, inflation, and capital formation: the perspective of overlapping generations models 43 4 The Diamond model with money as single outside asset 45 4. 1 The model. . . . . . . . 46 4. 2 Equilibrium conditions. 51 4. 3 Policy effects 58 4. 4 Discussion. 61 4. 5 Appendix . 63 5 Variation 1: Imperfect credit markets and asymmetric information 65 5. 1 The model. . . . . . . .




Capital, Accumulation, and Money


Book Description

Capital, Accumulation, and Money: An Integration of Capital, Growth, and Monetary Theory is a book about capital. A root concept of capital is developed which allows for most existing concepts of capital to be unified and related to one another in consistent fashion. Such a root concept of capital offers a framework for integrating monetary and capital theory, and for analyzing the functioning of an economy, whether that economy is in a steady state of subsistence or in a process of sustainable growth. Specifically, it is shown that a conservation principle emerges that both implies and imposes a variety of constraints on the macro behavior of an economy, constraints which make for straightforward understanding and analysis of such concepts as the real stock of money, real-balance effects, and the general price level. New and illuminating insights are also provided into aggregate supply and demand, natural and money rates of interest, the relationship between real and monetary economies, and economic growth and development.




Money and Capital in Economic Development


Book Description

This books presents a theory of economic development very different from the "stages of growth" hypothesis or strategies emphasizing foreign aid, trade, or regional association. Leaving these aside, the author breaks new ground by focusing on the use of domestic capital markets to stimulate economic performance. He suggests a "bootstrap" approach in which successful development would depend largely on policy choices made by national authorities in the developing countries themselves. Central to his theory is the freeing of domestic financial markets to allow interest rates to reflect the true scarcity of capital in a developing economy. His analysis leads to a critique of prevailing monetary theory and to a new view of the relation between money and physical capital—a view with policy implications for governments striving to overcome the vicious circle of inflation and stagnation. Examining the performance of South Korea, Taiwan, Brazil, and other countries, the author suggests that their success or failure has depended primarily on steps taken in the monetary sector. He concludes that monetary reform should take precedence over other development measures, such as tariff and tax reform or the encouragement of foreign capital investment. In addition to challenging much of the conventional wisdom of development, the author's revision of accepted monetary theory may be relevant for mature economies that face monetary problems.




Money, Distribution Conflict and Capital Accumulation


Book Description

This book demonstrates that 'monetary analysis', as contained in Post-Keynesian monetary theories, but also in the Neo-Ricardian monetary theory of distribution and in Marx's monetary analysis, can be integrated into Post-Keynesian models of distribution of growth in a convincing way.




Inflation, Tax Rules, and Capital Formation


Book Description

Inflation, Tax Rules, and Capital Formation brings together fourteen papers that show the importance of the interaction between tax rules and monetary policy. Based on theoretical and empirical research, these papers emphasize the importance of including explicit specifications of the tax system in such study.




IMF Staff Papers


Book Description

This paper discusses effects of inflation on economic development. A mild inflation may well encourage little, or no, evasion of the “inflation tax.” On the other hand, a strong inflation, and frequently a mild one also, will lead to community reactions which have effects like those of widespread tax evasion. A development policy may have wider aims than the encouragement of a high level of investment. Inflation has two effects on the desire for liquidity, which are related to the two basic reasons why individuals and businesses wish to hold liquid assets—the speculative and precautionary motives. Inflation increases the value of effective liquidity, thereby raising the community's desire for it, but it makes the most generally accepted store of liquidity unacceptable sources of protection. The control of inflation is only one of the problems facing a government wishing to encourage rapid economic development. The fight against illiteracy, the reform of bureaucratic practices, the building of basic sanitary facilities for the eradication of endemic diseases, the substitution of competitive for monopolistic trade practices, the encouragement of a widespread spirit of entrepreneurship, and the creation of an adequate amount of social capital, may be important prerequisites for rapid growth.







The Costs and Benefits of Price Stability


Book Description

In recent years, the Federal Reserve and central banks worldwide have enjoyed remarkable success in their battle against inflation. The challenge now confronting the Fed and its counterparts is how to proceed in this newly benign economic environment: Should monetary policy seek to maintain a rate of low-level inflation or eliminate inflation altogether in an effort to attain full price stability? In a seminal article published in 1997, Martin Feldstein developed a framework for calculating the gains in economic welfare that might result from a move from a low level of inflation to full price stability. The present volume extends that analysis, focusing on the likely costs and benefits of achieving price stability not only in the United States, but in Germany, Spain, and the United Kingdom as well. The results show that even small changes in already low inflation rates can have a substantial impact on the economic performance of different countries, and that variations in national tax rules can affect the level of gain from disinflation.




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.




Inflation Crises and Long-run Growth


Book Description

Recent literature suggests that long-run averages of growth and inflation are only weakly correlated and such correlation is not robust to exclusion of extreme inflation observations; inclusion of time series panel data has improved matters, but an aggregate parametric approach remains inconclusive. We propose a nonparametric definition of high inflation crises as periods when inflation is above 40 percent annually. Excluding countries with high inflation crises, we find no evidence of any consistent relationship between growth and inflation at any frequency. However, we find that growth falls sharply during discrete high inflation crises, then recovers surprisingly strongly after inflation falls. The fall in growth during crisis and recovery of growth after crisis tend to average out to close to zero (even slightly above zero), hence the lack of a robust cross-section correlation. Our findings could be consistent either with trend stationarity of output, in which inflation crises are purely cyclical phenomena, or with models in which crises have a favorable long-run purgative effect. Our findings do not support the view that reduction of high inflation carries heavy short-to-medium run output costs.