Publisher: Inbook; Rev Sub edition (March 1995)Language: EnglishISBN-10: 0964302500ISBN-13: 978-0964302501

Beginning with the development of credit-money theory in the twentieth century, Paul Dalziel derives a model that explains how interest rates are used by authorities to maintain price stability. His conclusions suggest ways in which the current policy framework can be improved to promote growth, without sacrificing that stability.

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.

In 1913 and 1914, A. Mitchell Innes published a pair of articles that stand as two of the best pieces written in the twentieth century on the nature of money. Only recently rediscovered, these articles are reprinted and analyzed here for the first time.

We develop a theory of money and credit as competing payment instruments, then put it to work in applications. Buyers can use cash or credit, with the former (latter) subject to the inflation tax (transaction costs). Frictions that make the choice of payment method interesting also imply equilibrium price dispersion. We deliver closed-form solutions for money demand. We then show the model can simultaneously account for the price-change facts, cash-credit shares in micro payment data, and money-interest correlations in macro data. We analyze the effects of inflation on welfare, price dispersion and markups. We also describe nonstationary equilibria as self-fulfilling prophecies, which is standard, except here it entails dynamics in the price distribution.

A noted economist exposes the truth behind our shrinking dollars... What precisely is inflation? What is its cause? Its cure? How long will it last? Is there any way you can take advantage of inflation? If not, how can you protect yourself against further erosion in the value of your savings? Henry Hazlitt gives his answers to these questions and many more in this clear, readable book. He exposes the fallacies by which some people have come to justify inflation, and he discusses the role of governments in creating the very inflation that they claim to be combatting. For this paper-bound edition Mr. Hazlitt has added new statistics and information, and in a new preface he comments on the current economic situation. What You Should Know About Inflation is required reading for anyone who wants to know why his money is worth less and what he can do about it. “A keen economic mind...provides an incisive primer on the subject.”—THE WALL STREET JOURNAL “This concise little book explains the elements of the subject in simplest terms, and takes the mystery out of the technical jargon in which it is too often buried. Henry Hazlitt answers...questions with logic and lucidity.”—INVESTMENT DEALER’S DIGEST