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Review of Economic Studies Vol. 57 No. 1 1990

Inflationary Consequences of Anticipated Macroeconomic Policies

Allan Drazen; Elhanan Helpman

Tel Aviv University

open access

Abstract

Budget deficits implying an unbounded present value of government debt are infeasible and, hence, induce expectations of a future policy change. The authors study how expectations of a policy switch, whose timing or mix between expenditure cuts, tax increases, or increases in money growth rates may be uncertain, affect economic dynamics before the switch takes place. They are especially concerned with the correlation between changes in the deficit and inflation. Of particular interest is their finding that timing uncertainty may induce fluctuations in the rate of inflation that seem to be unrelated to the budget deficit, at a time when the budget deficit is responsible for inflation.

DOI
10.2307/2297548
Volume
57
Issue
1
Pages
147
Sources
bibtex:phds-export.bib openalex crossref

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