Working Paper

Inflation uncertainty and growth in a simple monetary model

Abstract: This paper analyzes the effects of inflation variability on economic growth in a model where money is introduced via a cash-in-advance constraint. In this setting, we find that inflation adversely affects long-run growth, even when the cash-in-advance constraint applies only to consumption. At the same time, we find that inflation and growth are positively related in the short-run. In addition, variability tends to increase average growth through a precautionary savings motive. Since inflation and inflation variability tend to be highly correlated, this latter effect attenuates the negative long-run relationship between inflation and real growth. It also provides a partial rational for the notorious lack of robustness in cross-country regressions of growth and inflation.

Keywords: Inflation (Finance); Monetary policy;

Bibliographic Information

Provider: Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond

Part of Series: Working Paper

Publication Date: 1997

Number: 97-05