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Avoiding the inflation tax

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Abstract
I study the effects of inflation on the purchasing behavior of buyers in an economy where money is essential for certain transactions (as in Lagos and Wright, 2005). A long-standing intuition in this subject is that when inflation increases, agents try to spend their money holdings speedily. The standard framework fails to capture this kind of effect (see Lagos and Rocheteau, 2005). I propose a simple modification of the model that improves it in this dimension. I assume that buyers can rebalance their money holdings only sporadically (i.e., not every period). With this minimal change in the environment, I show that higher inflation induces some buyers to spend their money faster by frontloading their consumption, searching more intensively for transactions, and buying low-quality goods. In this way, the model is able to reproduce distortions in the pattern of transactions that, traditionally, have played an important role in the evaluation of the cost of inflation.

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  • Huberto M. Ennis, 2007. "Avoiding the inflation tax," Working Paper 07-06, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond.
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedrwp:07-06
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Andrew Clausen & Carlo Strub, 2016. "Money Cycles," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 57(4), pages 1279-1298, November.
    2. Nosal, Ed & Waller, Christopher J. & Wright, Randall, 2011. "Introduction To The Macroeconomic Dynamics Special Issues On Money, Credit, And Liquidity," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 15(S1), pages 1-9, April.
    3. Cordelius Ilgmann & Martin Menner, 2011. "Negative nominal interest rates: history and current proposals," International Economics and Economic Policy, Springer, vol. 8(4), pages 383-405, December.
    4. Hiraguchi, Ryoji & Kobayashi, Keiichiro, 2015. "Multiplicity of monetary steady states," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 127(C), pages 93-96.
    5. Stephen D. Williamson & Randall Wright, 2010. "New monetarist economics: methods," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, vol. 92(May), pages 265-302.
    6. Lucy Qian Liu & Liang Wang & Randall Wright, 2009. "“On the ‘Hot Potato Effect’ of Inflation: Intensive versus Extensive Marginsâ€," PIER Working Paper Archive 09-040, Penn Institute for Economic Research, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania.
    7. Dong, Mei & Jiang, Janet Hua, 2014. "Money and price posting under private information," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 150(C), pages 740-777.
    8. Jonathan Chiu & Miguel Molico, 2011. "Uncertainty, Inflation, and Welfare," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 43, pages 487-512, October.
    9. Araujo, Luis & Hu, Tai-Wei, 2018. "Optimal monetary interventions in credit markets," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 178(C), pages 455-487.
    10. Chiu, Jonathan & Molico, Miguel, 2010. "Liquidity, redistribution, and the welfare cost of inflation," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(4), pages 428-438, May.
    11. Janet Hua Jiang & Enchuan Shao, 2020. "The Cash Paradox," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 36, pages 177-197, April.
    12. Stella Xiuhua Huangfu, 2018. "The Effects of Inflation on Market Participation and Search Intensity," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 94(304), pages 25-38, March.
    13. Anbarci, Nejat & Dutu, Richard & Feltovich, Nick, 2015. "Inflation tax in the lab: a theoretical and experimental study of competitive search equilibrium with inflation," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 17-33.

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    Inflation (Finance); Money;

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