The Causes, Costs and Compensations of Inflation: An Investigation of Three Problems in Monetary Theory - Softcover

Coleman, William Oliver

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1848444672 ISBN 13: 9781848444676

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd, 2009

Synopsis

This book explores the causes, costs and benefits of inflation. It argues that while the cause of inflation is essentially monetary, the costs and benefits of inflation lie in inflation's distortion of the economy's responses to real shocks.

The book begins by securing the Quantity Theory of Money from certain critiques. The theory is defended from the 'fiscal theory of the price level' by a refinement of the theory of money demand, and from post Keynesianism by the construction of a theory of the supply of inside money. To cope with the endogeneity of outside money, a simple and tractable neo-Wicksellian theory of inflation is advanced, which is shown to exhibit a striking homology with the Quantity Theory. The author then traces the costliness of inflation, not to any disturbance of the money market, but to the damage inflation does to the bond market's function of sharing out disturbances to consumption caused by technological shocks. The same damage, however, imparts an egalitarian dynamic to the accumulation of wealth, which will not occur without risky inflation.

The Causes, Costs and Compensations of Inflation will be of great interest to policy makers, central bankers, researchers, and both post-graduate and undergraduate students in macroeconomics, money and banking.

About this title

About the Author

William Oliver Coleman, Reader, The Australian National University, Australia

Edition details

• Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd
• Publication date: 2009
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1848444672
• ISBN 13: 9781848444676
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 272