Inflation and Redistribution: Research on the Origins and Implications of Money as a Unit of Account

摘要提案标题：通货膨胀和再分配：关于货币作为会计单位的起源和影响的研究提案编号：SE-1260961主要调查者：Doepke，Matthias在发达经济体中，规定未来付款的资产和负债(如抵押贷款、贷款、存款和政府债务)通常以当地货币的固定名义单位计价。例如，美国政府债券的持有者将获得一系列利息支付和以固定美元计算的本金偿还。同样，美国固定利率抵押贷款借款人的一系列还款也是以美元固定的。使用货币作为资产和负债的记账单位很重要，因为这意味着记账单位价值的意外变化(即通货膨胀或通货紧缩)会导致借款人和贷款人之间的财富重新分配。例如，意想不到的通货膨胀降低了所有名义资产和负债的实际价值，意味着贷款人亏损，借款人受益。该项目从理论和数量角度考察了货币作为资产和负债的记账单位的角色的起源和影响。这项研究有四个不同的组成部分。第一部分是理论部分，旨在解释为什么经济主体选择使用货币作为资产和负债的记账单位(而不是将未来的支付与通胀挂钩)。这类理论还可以用来理解使用货币作为记账单位的历史，政府债务在促进使用货币作为统一记账单位方面的作用，以及货币联盟的经济学。第二部分考察了再分配效应对通货膨胀政治经济学的作用，从而形成了一种积极的通货膨胀理论。第三个组成部分考虑了美国在不久的将来通胀上升的可能性，并使用具有丰富生命周期结构的量化一般均衡模型来评估这种通胀冲击对宏观经济总量和福利的影响。该模型考虑了资金约束，并有一个明确的住房市场，因此也可以考察通货膨胀和房地产价格之间的相互作用。研究的这一部分将加强我们对利用通胀来侵蚀政府债务的诱惑的理解，以及这种政策的分配和宏观经济影响。这项拟议研究的最后一个部分聚焦于20世纪80年代美国的通货紧缩时期，并使用消费者金融调查(SCF)的小组数据来记录意外通缩对家庭财富的影响。鉴于我们可以在财务状况分析小组中为住户建立个人按揭记录，这项研究将让我们深入了解稳定政策在个别住户层面的影响，并加深我们对这些政策的宏观经济影响的了解。总括而言，这项研究加深了我们对货币政策及其后果，以及货币机构和货币制度设计的认识。对最优货币区的影响将有助于澄清统一货币的成本和收益，由于欧元区的债务危机，这一问题最近受到了很大关注。该提案的政治经济学方面将有助于澄清一个经济体的体制特征之间的反馈，如养老金制度的设计和货币政策。

Abstract Proposal Title: Inflation and Redistribution: Research on the Origins and Implications of Money as a Unit of AccountProposal Number: SES - 1260961Principal Investigator: Doepke, MatthiasIn advanced economies, assets and liabilities that specify future payments (such as mortgages, loans, deposits, and government debt) are usually denominated in fixed nominal units of the local currency. For example, the owner of a U.S. government bond stands to receive a series of interest payments and a principal repayment in fixed dollar terms. Similarly, U.S. fixed-rate mortgage borrowers owe a series of payments that are fixed in dollar terms as well. The use of money as a unit of account for assets and liabilities matters, because it implies that unanticipated changes in the value of the unit of account (i.e., inflation or deflation) lead to wealth redistribution between borrowers and lenders. For example, unanticipated inflation lowers the real value of all nominal assets and liabilities, implying that lenders lose and borrowers gain.The project examines the origins and implications of money's role as a unit of account for assets and liabilities from theoretical and quantitative perspectives. The research has four different components. The first component is theoretical, and aims to explain why economic agents choose to use money as the unit of account for assets and liabilities (as opposed to, say, indexing future payments to inflation). A theory of this kind can also be used to understand the history of the use of money as a unit of account, the role of government debt in promoting the use of money a unified unit of account, and the economics of currency unions. The second component examines the role of redistribution effects for the political economy of inflation, and thereby contributes to a positive theory of inflation. The third component considers the possibility of higher inflation in the United States in the near future, and uses a quantitative general equilibrium model with a rich life-cycle structure to assess the effects of such an inflation shock on macroeconomic aggregates and welfare. The model allows for financial constraints and has an explicit housing market, so that the interaction between inflation and real estate prices can be examined as well. This component of the research will enhance our understanding of the temptation to use inflation to erode government debt, as well as the distributional and macroeconomic implications of such a policy. The last component of the proposed research focuses on the disinflation episode in the United States during the 1980s, and uses panel data from the Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF) to document the impact of surprise deflation on household wealth. Given that individual mortgage histories can be constructed for households in the SCF panel, this research will provide insights into the impact of stabilization policies at the level of individual households, and enhance our understanding of the wider macroeconomic effects of such policies.In sum, the project deepens our understanding of monetary policy and its consequences, as well as the design of monetary institutions and currency systems. The implications for optimal currency areas will help clarify the costs and benefits of a unified currency, an issue which recently has received a lot of attention due to the debt crisis in the Euro zone. The political-economy aspect of the proposal will help clarify the feedback between institutional features of an economy such as the design of the pension system and monetary policy.