1、Guido Lorenzoni and Ivan WerningNorges Bank/IMF/IMFER Conference-June 2023Inflation:Conflict and SpiralsConflict and spiralsConflict,disagreement,disappointment central to inflation experience Tension between aspirations and realizations of relative prices They are there in our models!A bit hidden:w
2、e try to bring them out Spirals:dynamics of one central relative price W/P Effects of demand shocks and supply shocks Inflation as waves of relative price adjustment1.ConflictRelative pricesInflation and relative prices Perennial source of misunderstanding People:“I hate inflation,it erodes my purch
3、asing power!”Economists:“Thats not really the problem,problem is that with high inflation all prices rise”Cost is not that your relative price changes,cost is that:money is a bad store of value(Friedman),that all relative prices are a bit off(NK model)But is naive view really wrong?A network economy
4、A network of sectors(including labor)Each sector cares about relative price(in logs)Each is trying to get their aspiration relative price nPnn mnn Pn anCoefficients capture:Input output structureConsumption baskets of worker groupsmCan we make everyone happy?Is there a vector such that?Answer:yes if
5、f Definition Conflict=PP MP=a a=0 a is a measure of network centrality of each sectorCan we make everyone happy?Simple example No conflict iff P W=aPW P=aWaP+aW=0Price settingContinuous time Calvo pricing Myopic agents set price Law of motion of prices Where is Poisson intensity of resettingP*nt=ant
6、+n mnn Pn tPnt=n(P*nt Pnt)nSteady stateSuppose is constant Then for any initial vector of prices inflation in all sectors converges to the same value Where is the average price duration aP0C=1d add=nn1nConflict!Transitional dynamicsAlong transition to steady state We label two components“adjustment”