Mark Blyth | Inflation - A Guide for Losers and Users

  / dinamiacetiul     / dinamiacet.iscte     / dinamiacetiul     / dinamiacetiscte   Mark Blyth The William R. Rhodes ’57 - Professor of International Economics The Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs, Brown University 18 de Abril - 17:00 Auditório JJ Laginha, Ed. Sedas Nunes - Iscte Sinopse Inflation came back, seems to have died down, but may not be gone for good. If inflation is something we are going to have to deal with more often, then our understanding of it needs to improve. Let’s start with the claim that no one benefits from inflation. If you consider fossil fuel producers, or banks that can charge higher interest rates without passing tat on to customers, or people on fixed rate mortgages, that’s simply not true. Or, take the fear that any amount of inflation will spiral off into hyperinflation? Also, extraordinarily unlikely. What about the idea that raising interest rates is always the best policy to tame inflation? Recent experience suggests that raising rates had very little to do with why it fell. Milton Friedman famously said that “inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon.” Someone else once said that “Shootings are always and everywhere a ballistic phenomenon.” Equally true, and when you think about it, equally vague. If we are going to live in a more inflationary world, we are going to have to think harder about what it is, who wins, and who loses.