[go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/4873.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Credit Markets and the Welfare Costs of Inflation

Author

Listed:
  • Jose De Gregorio
  • Federico Sturzenegger
Abstract
We construct a simple model in which high inflation imposes welfare costs because it affects the ability of the financial sector to screen between high and low cost producers. Consumers search for a low price and inflation reduces the incentives to search, resulting in an increase in the demand of high cost producers. We show that beyond a certain level of inflation there is a switch from a separating equilibrium to a pooling equilibrium, where financial institutions become unable to distinguish among clients. In this pooling equilibrium a larger share of credit is allocated to less efficient firms.

Suggested Citation

  • Jose De Gregorio & Federico Sturzenegger, 1994. "Credit Markets and the Welfare Costs of Inflation," NBER Working Papers 4873, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:4873
    Note: IFM
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w4873.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. De Gregorio, Jose, 1993. "Inflation, taxation, and long-run growth," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(3), pages 271-298, June.
    2. Kalyan Chatterjee & William Samuelson, 1983. "Bargaining under Incomplete Information," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 31(5), pages 835-851, October.
    3. De Gregorio, Jose & Sturzenegger, Federico, 1997. "Financial markets and inflation under imperfect information," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(1), pages 149-168, October.
    4. Rudiger Dornbusch & Ferico Sturzenegger & Holger Wolf, 1990. "Extreme Inflation: Dynamics and Stabilization," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 21(2), pages 1-84.
    5. Roland Benabou, 1988. "Search, Price Setting and Inflation," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 55(3), pages 353-376.
    6. Mariano Tommasi, 1996. "High inflation: resource misallocations and growth effects," Estudios de Economia, University of Chile, Department of Economics, vol. 23(2 Year 19), pages 157-177, December.
    7. Casella, Alessandra & Feinstein, Jonathan S, 1990. "Economic Exchange during Hyperinflation," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(1), pages 1-27, February.
    8. Stiglitz, Joseph E & Weiss, Andrew, 1981. "Credit Rationing in Markets with Imperfect Information," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 71(3), pages 393-410, June.
    9. Mariano Tommasi, 1992. "The Welfare Effects of Inflation, The Consequences of Price Instability on Search Markets," UCLA Economics Working Papers 655, UCLA Department of Economics.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. De Gregorio, Jose & Sturzenegger, Federico, 1997. "Financial markets and inflation under imperfect information," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(1), pages 149-168, October.
    2. Andres, Javier & Hernando, Ignacio & Lopez-Salido, J. David, 2004. "The role of the financial system in the growth-inflation link: the OECD experience," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 20(4), pages 941-961, November.
    3. Ciżkowicz, Piotr & Rzońca, Andrzej, 2010. "Inflation and corporate investment in selected OECD countries in the years 1960-2005 – an empirical analysis," MPRA Paper 29846, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Jones, L.E. & Manuelli, R.E, 1997. "Policy Uncertainty and Informational Monopolies: The Case of Monetary Policy," Working papers 9715, Wisconsin Madison - Social Systems.
    5. A.R. Kemal & Abdul Qayyum & Muhammad Nadim Hanif, 2007. "Financial Development and Economic Growth: Evidence from a Heterogeneous Panel of High Income Countries," Lahore Journal of Economics, Department of Economics, The Lahore School of Economics, vol. 12(1), pages 1-34, Jan-Jun.
    6. Bruno, Michael & Easterly, William, 1998. "Inflation crises and long-run growth," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(1), pages 3-26, February.
    7. Ciżkowicz, Piotr & Rzońca, Andrzej, 2013. "Does inflation harm corporate investment? Empirical evidence from OECD countries," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 7, pages 1-38.
    8. Tommasi, Mariano, 1999. "On high inflation and the allocation of resources," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(3), pages 401-421, December.
    9. Qayyum, Abdul & Siddiqui, Rehana & Hanif, Muhammad Nadim, 2004. "Financial Development and Economic Growth: Evidence from Heterogeneous Panel Data of Low Income Countries," MPRA Paper 23431, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Jorge E. Restrepo L. & Luis Salomó S. & Rodrigo O. Valdés P., 2009. "Macroeconomy, Monetary Policy and Central Bank Capitalization," Journal Economía Chilena (The Chilean Economy), Central Bank of Chile, vol. 12(1), pages 5-38, April.
    11. Javier Andrés & Ignacio Hernando & J. David López-Salido, 1999. "Assessing the benefits of price stability: The international experience," Estudios Económicos, Banco de España, number 69.
    12. Piotr Ciżkowicz & Marcin Hołda & Andrzej Rzońca, 2010. "Inflation and corporate investment – a critical survey," Bank i Kredyt, Narodowy Bank Polski, vol. 41(6), pages 5-44.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. De Gregorio, Jose & Sturzenegger, Federico, 1997. "Financial markets and inflation under imperfect information," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(1), pages 149-168, October.
    2. Mariano Tommasi, 1996. "High inflation: resource misallocations and growth effects," Estudios de Economia, University of Chile, Department of Economics, vol. 23(2 Year 19), pages 157-177, December.
    3. Tommasi, Mariano, 1999. "On high inflation and the allocation of resources," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(3), pages 401-421, December.
    4. Akhand Akhtar Hossain, 2009. "Central Banking and Monetary Policy in the Asia-Pacific," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 12777.
    5. Blommstein, Hans J. & Spencer, Michael G., 1996. "Sound finance and the wealth of nations," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 7(2), pages 115-124.
    6. Andres, Javier & Hernando, Ignacio & Lopez-Salido, J. David, 2004. "The role of the financial system in the growth-inflation link: the OECD experience," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 20(4), pages 941-961, November.
    7. Bruno, Michael & Easterly, William, 1998. "Inflation crises and long-run growth," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(1), pages 3-26, February.
    8. Federico Sturzenegger, 1995. "Bolivia: From Stabilization to What?," NBER Chapters, in: Reform, Recovery, and Growth: Latin America and the Middle East, pages 239-288, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Gutiérrez Huerta, María José & Vázquez Pérez, Jesús, 2002. "Explosive Hyperinflation, Inflation Tax Laffer Curve and Modelling the use of Money," DFAEII Working Papers 1988-088X, University of the Basque Country - Department of Foundations of Economic Analysis II.
    10. Gylfason, Thorvaldur & Herbertsson, Tryggvi Thor, 2001. "Does inflation matter for growth?," Japan and the World Economy, Elsevier, vol. 13(4), pages 405-428, December.
    11. Burdekin, Richard C. K. & Burkett, Paul, 1996. "Hyperinflation, the exchange rate and endogenous money: post-World War I Germany revisited," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 15(4), pages 599-621, August.
    12. Mariano Tommasi, 1992. "The Welfare Effects of Inflation, The Consequences of Price Instability on Search Markets," UCLA Economics Working Papers 655, UCLA Department of Economics.
    13. De Gregorio, Jose, 1996. "Inflation, growth, and central banks : theory and evidence," Policy Research Working Paper Series 1575, The World Bank.
    14. Smith, R. Todd & van Egteren, Henry, 2005. "Inflation, investment and economic performance: The role of internal financing," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 49(5), pages 1283-1303, July.
    15. Zerbini, Maria Beatriz & Rocha, Fabiana, 2002. "Private sector credit and inflation during Brazilian stabilization plans: Models with endogenously determined structural breaks," Brazilian Review of Econometrics, Sociedade Brasileira de Econometria - SBE, vol. 22(2), November.
    16. Nwakanma Prince Chinaecherem & Ifeanyi Mgbataogu, 2013. "Influence of Interest Rates Regimes on Deposit Money Banks’ Credit in Nigeria: An Econometric Assessment," International Journal of Empirical Finance, Research Academy of Social Sciences, vol. 1(3), pages 52-64.
    17. María-José Gutiérrez & Jesús Vázquez, 2004. "Explosive Hyperinflation, Inflation-Tax Curve, and Modeling the Use of Money," Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics (JITE), Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 160(2), pages 311-326, June.
    18. Vazquez, Jesus, 1998. "How high can inflation get during hyperinflation? A transaction cost demand for money approach," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 14(3), pages 433-451, August.
    19. Raúl Labán & Federico Sturzenegger, 1994. "Distributional Conflict, Financial Adaptation And Delayed Stabilizations," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 6(3), pages 257-276, November.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • E31 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Price Level; Inflation; Deflation
    • E44 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Financial Markets and the Macroeconomy

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:4873. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.