A Monetary-Fiscal Theory of Sudden Inflations*

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Bassetto, Marco; Miller, David S.
• 署名单位: Federal Reserve System - USA; Federal Reserve Bank - Minneapolis; Federal Reserve System - USA; Federal Reserve System Board of Governors
• 刊物名称: QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0033-5533
• DOI: 10.1093/qje/qjaf012
• 发表日期: 2025
• 页码: 1959-2000
• 关键词: public debt; POLICY

摘要

This article posits an information channel as an explanation for sudden inflations. Households 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 consumer 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; then at some point, something snaps, and a sudden inflation takes off that is strongly responsive to incoming fiscal news.