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WP202256-A-monetary-fiscal-theory-of-sudden-inflations.pdf
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This paper posits an information channel as the explanation for sudden inflations. Consumers saving via nominal government bonds face a choice whether to acquire costly information about future government surpluses. They trade off the cost of acquiring information about the surpluses that back bond repayment against the benefit of a more informed saving decision. Through the information channel, small changes in the economic environment can trigger large responses in consumers’ behavior and prices. This setting explains why there can be long stretches of time during which government surpluses have large movements with little inflation response; yet, at some point, something snaps, and a sudden inflation takes off that is strongly responsive to incoming fiscal news.
Authors

Research Associate Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis
Marco is a Research Associate at the IFS and currently is a Senior Research Economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.

Principal Economist Federal Reserve Board
Working Paper details
- DOI
- 10.1920/wp.ifs.2022.5622
- Publisher
- Institute for Fiscal Studies
Suggested citation
Bassetto, M and Miller, D. (2022). A monetary-fiscal theory of sudden inflations. 22/56. London: Institute for Fiscal Studies. Available at: https://ifs.org.uk/publications/monetary-fiscal-theory-sudden-inflations (accessed: 19 May 2025).
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