Great Inflation Research Articles

Active or passive? Revisiting the role of fiscal policy during high inflation

We investigate the interplay of the monetary–fiscal policy mix during times of crisis by drawing insights from the Great Inflation of the 1960s and 1970s. We use a Sequential Monte Carlo (SMC) algorithm to estimate a DSGE model with three distinct monetary/fiscal policy regimes. We show that, in such a model, SMC outperforms standard sampling algorithms because it is better suited to deal with multimodal posteriors, an outcome that is highly likely in a DSGE model with monetary–fiscal policy interactions. From the estimation with SMC, a differentiated perspective results: pre-Volcker macroeconomic dynamics were similarly driven by passive monetary/passive fiscal policy and fiscal dominance. We apply these insights to study the post-pandemic inflation period.

The Challenge in 2000−2009 to Phillips-Curve-Based Accounts of UK Economic Policy: Comment on Cristiano

A series of research papers that appeared from 2000 to 2009 made the case that the UK authorities in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s eschewed Phillips-curve-based analysis and that, consequently, the UK Great Inflation of the 1970s should not be regarded as resulting from policymakers’ pursuit of a perceived long-run inflation/unemployment trade-off. The position advanced in these 2000−2009 papers was that, instead, UK economic policy until 1979 subscribed to a nonmonetary perspective on inflation. This perspective implied UK authorities’ rejection of Phillips-curve-type trade-off analysis, but it also meant that they misjudged the importance of monetary policy in inflation control, thereby compounding the country's inflation problem. When this series of papers began to appear at the start of the 2000s, the trade-off-centered interpretation of the US Great Inflation was highly prevalent and was also being applied to the UK Great Inflation. By late in the decade, however, the case—as outlined in the 2000−2009 papers—against Phillips-curve-based accounts of historical policy conduct had gained notable acceptance among central bankers and academic researchers who discussed the UK Great Inflation. This article corrects erroneous statements that the challenge to Phillips-curve-based accounts of historical UK policymaker behavior only appeared in research starting in the 2010s.

The rise of inflation targeting

AbstractThis paper discusses the interactions between politics and economic ideas leading to the adoption of inflation targeting in the United States. In the gold standard era, farmers' vulnerability to falling prices made price‐level stabilization a salient political and social concern. Economists of the progressive era honed in on price‐level stabilization as a key to promoting prosperity and social justice. Irving Fisher, in alliance with farm interests, helped members of Congress introduce price‐level stabilization bills that, while unsuccessful, introduced the possibility that a price‐level stabilization mandate might be a viable alternative to a gold standard. In the postwar years, the Great Inflation and Volcker disinflation set the stage for the rise of inflation targeting by highlighting the benefits of credibility, transparency, and expectations management. Tensions inherent in the implementation of inflation targeting—including its position in the “rules versus discretion” debate—have become more pronounced since the post‐COVID run‐up in inflation.

Inflation in France Since the 1960s: A Post-Keynesian Interpretation Using the Conflict-Inflation Model

This paper analyses inflation in France since the early 1960s based on a standard conflicting-claims approach. Applying an empirical version of the conflict-inflation framework, we adduce evidence suggesting the theory is sound and can explain variations in inflation over the long run. We provide a method for estimating indicators of workers’ and firms’ bargaining power as well as their respective distributional aspirations. Based on the literature we identify four periods: the Fordist regime, the Neoliberal regime, and two transitional periods. Our results cast light on institutional regime changes. It is shown that the evolution from the Great Inflation to the Great Moderation was the consequence of a collapse in the bargaining power of workers (and of firms to a lesser extent); but the narrowing of the aspirations’ gap because of workers’ renouncement was also significant. This analysis allows us to highlight differences between the stagflation observed during the 1970s and the inflationary surge in the post-pandemic period (2021–2023).

The Failure of the Bank of the Commonwealth: An Early Example of Interest Rate Risk

This Economic Commentary describes the collapse and subsequent bailout of the Detroit-headquartered Bank of the Commonwealth in 1972. Commonwealth failed because it invested heavily in long-duration, fixed-rate municipal securities in the mid-1960s in a bet that interest rates would decline. Instead, with the beginning of the Great Inflation of 1965–1980, rates rose. Liquidity problems then ensued, and the bank approached failure. Unable to find an acquirer because of Michigan’s banking restrictions, regulators instead bailed out the bank because of fears of contagion. This article also compares the collapse of Commonwealth with the spring 2023 failures of Silicon Valley Bank and First Republic. In particular, I discuss structural changes in banking that impacted the speed of the runs and the pools of potential acquirers.

Inflation—Who Cares? Monetary Policy in Times of Low Attention

AbstractI propose an approach to quantify attention to inflation and show that attention declined after the Great Inflation period. This decline in attention has important implications for monetary policy as it renders managing inflation expectations more difficult and can lead to inflation‐attention traps: prolonged periods of a binding lower bound and low inflation due to slowly adjusting inflation expectations. As attention declines, the optimal policy response is to increase the inflation target. The lower bound fundamentally changes the normative implications of declining attention: lower attention raises welfare absent the lower‐bound constraint, whereas it decreases welfare when accounting for the lower bound.

The New Great Inflation: How Western Central Banks Got It Wrong…and What They Should Do About It

The New Great Inflation: How Western Central Banks Got It Wrong…and What They Should Do About It

Energy shocks and inflation episodes in the UK

This paper explores the potential macroeconomic impacts of the recent episode of global energy shock in the UK economy. Unlike the Great Inflation in the 1970s, current inflation is likely to have limited impacts on the overall UK economy due to institutional changes, such as the weakening of collective wage bargaining, etc. As a result, we argue that the current episode of inflation requires limited interventions using monetary policies. A new macro-econometric forecasting model is developed for the UK economy to simulate counterfactual policy scenarios.

A Fed for Our Times: A Review Essay on 21st Century Monetary Policy by Ben Bernanke

This essay reviews 21st Century Monetary Policy: The Federal Reserve from the Great Inflation to COVID-19 by Ben Bernanke, a fascinating account of the evolution of the Fed since the 1950s, and a stalwart defense of the status quo: of the Fed’s remit, its independence, and the tools and practices it now uses to pursue its mandate. The essay supports many of Bernanke’s key points and brings the experience of the European Central Bank to illuminate them by contrast. However, it argues that the book understates the significance of the changes in institutional architecture that have emerged since the crisis. Questions that we thought had been settled are going to have to be addressed anew, albeit in slightly different guises. This will have implications for all aspects of economic governance. (JEL E31, E32, E52, E58, E62, N12, N22)

Is French (dis)inflation explained by conflicting-claims theory? Evidence from cointegration with structural break

ABSTRACTThe aim of this article is to provide an explanation of French (dis)inflation based on the conflicting-claims theory. Making use of cointegration techniques with structural breaks, we bring some empirical evidence suggesting the soundness of such a theory in order to explain the variation of inflation in the long run. Amongst our main results, we show that the transition from the Great Inflation of the 1970s to the Great Moderation was the consequence of a dramatic collapse in the bargaining power of both workers and firms. As a secondary objective, it is also an attempt to fill the gap with other competing theories of inflation since the conflicting-claims approach is characterized by a relative paucity in terms of empirical works.

Возврат мировой экономики к режиму высокой инфляции

Global inflation is one of the most significant challenges for the post-pandemic world economy. After several decades of low inflation and even elements of deflationary processes in developed countries, the danger of falling into a new period of great inflation had seemed insignificant. Dovish monetary policy during the 2009–19 period did not provoke a spike in inflation, and the slowdown of the economy during the lockdown period put the vigilance to rest. However, the COVID-19 pandemic and anti-crisis measures it triggered, the Russia-Ukraine conflict, and sanctions and anti-sanctions solidified inflationary processes around the world, both in developed and developing countries. In this article, we show the inertial nature of inflation in both the U.S. and the European Union (EU) and argue that there has been a transition to a high inflation regime, despite the decline in developed country inflation in the first quarter of 2023 mentioned in the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) January report. Getting out of this high inflation regime will require much more serious and time-consuming measures than those used to manage inflation in the low inflation regime.

Book Review: 21st Century Monetary Policy: The Federal Reserve from the Great Inflation to COVID-19

Former Fed chairman Ben Bernanke has written a retrospective on the Fed that should be of interest to those in the Austrian school tradition. Bernanke makes numerous admissions, such as the fact that several U.S. presidents pressured the Fed to pursue inflationary policies, and the fact that the Fed contributed to the Great Recession. Yet he seems incapable of comprehending the Fed's inherent problems, exhibiting a state of denial about recent failures.

Book Review: 21st Century Monetary Policy: The Federal Reserve from the Great Inflation to COVID-19 by Ben S. Bernanke

Book Review: <i>21st Century Monetary Policy: The Federal Reserve from the Great Inflation to COVID-19</i> by Ben S. Bernanke

Trend inflation and evolving inflation dynamics: A Bayesian GMM analysis

Inflation dynamics are investigated by estimating a generalized version of the New Keynesian Phillips curve (NKPC) of Galí and Gertler (1999) using Bayesian GMM. US macroeconomic data suggests that the generalized NKPC (GNKPC) performs best in terms of quasi-marginal likelihood among those considered both during and after the Great Inflation period. The estimated GNKPC indicates that when trend inflation fell after the Great Inflation period, the probability of price change decreased and the GNKPC flattened, which is in line with findings by previous studies.

Price and prejudice: reflections on the return of inflation and ideology*,**

The current debate on the causes of inflation is dominated by a particular view of what caused the inflationary acceleration in the 1970s, the so-called Great Inflation. In this view, inflation is always and everywhere a demand phenomenon and requires contractionary monetary policy to be kept under control. The alternative view put forward by many heterodox authors emphasize what might be termed the oligopolistic view of inflation. In this paper, we trace the limitations of both views for the center and the periphery.

Advances in forecasting: An introduction in light of the debate on inflation forecasting

AbstractThe sharp rise in inflation during the past few years has engendered comparisons with the great inflation of the 1970s and early 1980s. Like that earlier episode, the recent inflation has been underpinned by supply‐side shocks and, in the case of the United States, by highly accommodative fiscal and monetary policies. Like that early episode, the recent inflation has been largely unpredicted; it caught US policy makers by surprise, despite the fact that several prominent economists had warned early on that fiscal and monetary policies were setting the stage for an upsurge in inflation. To motivate this special issue, we provide a brief account of the policy miscues and policy debates that resulted from the large forecast errors in predicting the upsurge in inflation in 2021 and 2022. We then provide an overview of the papers in this issue, which address a range of methodological and empirical issues related to forecasting and highlight the dilemmas faced by agents within the economy and policy makers.

Die Große Inflation in Deutschland 1914 bis 1923

Abstract The article treats the history of Germany’s Great Inflation from 1914 to 1923. It focusses on explaining the turning points of wholesale price trends. It demonstrates that these were mostly triggered by national and international political decisions immediately impacting the mark exchange rate. Price developments usually fell in line the following month. Money supply growth followed a steady trend upward, even in periods when the mark exchange rate remained stable or even appreciated. The author comes to the conclusion that the exchange rate, not money supply, was the pacemaker for price developments. This even holds for the turning point from galloping inflation to hyperinflation in June/July 1922.

Die Hyperinflation in Deutschland 1923

Abstract 100 years ago, the Great Inflation, which had already begun in 1914 with the First World War, led to the hyperinflation of 1923. To this day, inflation aversion prevails among German politicians and the population. On the occasion of this anniversary and the recent sharp rise in inflation in Germany, the possible causes and associated different theoretical explanations of the Great Inflation will be discussed. Moreover, the effects on the respective population groups and the state were quite different. Finally, the question arises as to how hyperinflation can be overcome and whether a similar scenario is still conceivable in Germany today.

Price-level determinacy and monetary policy in a model with money and trend inflation

AbstractI examine how money and trend inflation shaped US macroeconomic dynamics during the Great Inflation. I develop a business cycle model with positive trend inflation where money is allowed (but not required) to play a role in determining the equilibrium values of inflation and output through non-separable utility, adjustment costs for holding real balances, and the monetary policy reaction function. The Taylor principle changes in this environment. Targeting money guarantees price determinacy even with trend inflation, but these results are sensitive to the inclusion of non-separability and portfolio adjustment costs. The framework is combined with Greenbook data that detect the role of money in the policy reaction function. The response to money was likely not sufficiently strong to complement the reaction to inflation and counteract the high trend inflation observed during the pre-Volcker period, which most likely led to price indeterminacy.

Myth and Reality in the Great Inflation Debate: Supply Shocks and Wealth Effects in a Multipolar World Economy

This article critically evaluates debates over the causes of U.S. inflation. We first show that claims that the Biden stimulus was the major cause of inflation are mistaken: the key data series—stimulus spending and inflation—move dramatically out of phase. While the first ebbs quickly, the second persistently surges. We then look at alternative explanations for the price rises. We assess four supply-side factors: imports, energy prices, rises in corporate profit margins, and COVID. We argue that discussions of COVID’s impact have thus far only tangentially acknowledged the pandemic’s far-reaching effects on labor markets. We conclude that while all four factors played roles in bringing on and sustaining inflation, they cannot explain all of it. There is an aggregate demand problem. But the surprise surge in demand did not arise from government spending. It came from the unprecedented gains in household wealth, particularly for the richest 10% of households, which we show powered the recovery of aggregate US consumption expenditure, especially from July 2021. The final cause of the inflationary surge in the U.S., therefore, was in large measure the unequal (wealth) effects of ultra-loose monetary policy during 2020–2021. This conclusion is important because supply-side (and thus potentially inflationary) pressures are unlikely to subside soon. Going forward, COVID, war, climate change, and the drift to a belligerently multipolar world system are all likely to keep straining global supply chains. Our conclusion outlines how policy has to change to deal with a world of steady, but irregular supply shocks, including Covid’s continuing impact on labor markets. By their nature, such shocks create problems that monetary policy can cope with only at an enormous cost; they require targeted solutions. But when supply plummets or becomes more variable, fiscal policy also has to adapt: existing explorations of ways to steady demand over the business cycle have to embrace much bolder macroeconomic measures to control over-spending when supply is temporarily constrained.