Incomplete markets and the output-inflation tradeoff

Pre-print, Working paper: This paper analyses the effects of money shocks on macroeconomic aggregates in a flexible-price, incomplete-markets environment that generates persistent wealth inequalities amongst agents. In this framework, unexpected money shocks redistribute wealth from the cash-rich employed to the cash-poor unemployed, and induce the former to increase their labour supply in order to maintain their desired levels of consumption and precautionary savings. The reduced-form dynamics of the model is a textbook "output-inflation tradeoff" equation whereby inflation shocks raise current output. The attenuating role of mean inflation and money growth persistence on this non-neutrality tradeoff, as well as some of the welfare implications of wealth redistribution, are also examined.

Author(s)

Yann Algan, Edouard Challe, Xavier Ragot

Date of publication
  • 2008
Keywords JEL
E24 E31 E32
Keywords
  • Short-run nonneutrality
  • Borrowing constraints
  • Incomplete markets
Internal reference
  • PSE Working Papers n°2006-45
Version
  • 1