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Inflation is dead
Pollyanna, and the absence of a free lunch
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INFLATION IS DEAD



In 1968 (a few years, as chance would have it, before a big leap in inflation), Germany’s economics minister, Karl Schiller, announced that “inflation is dead, as dead as a rusty nail”. More than a quarter of a century later, the “inflation is dead” school is making another bid for posterity. Some economists even declared that inflation is “an extinct volcano”, dangerous only because some foolish central bank­ers refuse to see that it has vanished.

What to make of claims of these sort? It is, for a start, worth noting that even if inflation is indeed dead, nobody has man­aged to persuade financial markets of the fact. This week, in the wake of news that the United States had created more jobs than expected in March, bond prices plunged on fears that a stronger economy might reignite inflation. Conventional wisdom is often wrong. But in the case of inflation there is a better answer than the gamblers’ one: it is to wait and see.

Another point to note about these claims is that they form part of a trend among some economists to rewrite some of the core assumptions of their own discipline. They are doing so, they say, in order to accommodate the big changes that are sweeping the world economy, and in particular its growing integration. In the face of “globalisation”, these economists have begun to challenge not just the persistence of inflation but also the theory of comparative advantage and the propo­sition that new technology creates more jobs than it destroys.

As Keynes said, a discipline that changes its mind as the facts change is more admirable than one that clings to obso­lete dogma. The trouble with letting the paradigm-busters have their fun is that each of their new “insights” implies a policy reversal that politicians will favour even if they do not. Inflation is dead? Then relax monetary discipline. No such thing as comparative advantage? Time for protectionism. Technology destroys jobs? Make it harder for firms to hire and fire. By their zeal to proclaim a new era, these economists are in danger of lending respectability to dreadful policies.

And on thin grounds. Consider the alleged death of inflation. It may well be true, that sharper competition at home and abroad, new technology and weaker trade unions have made it harder for firms and workers to raise prices and wages. But even if structural changes of this sort increase the rate at which economies grow before inflation takes off, monetary discipline remains cru­cial. Does anyone seriously believe that Germany’s inflation rate is lower than Italy’s because its economy is more open, not because it has followed stricter monetary policies?

The claim that globalisation has wiped out comparative advantage is just as extravagant, and based on equally thin reasoning. It is true that free trade and new technology make it easier for the rich world’s firms to shift production to where labour is cheapest. And it is true that some low-skilled jobs in the rich world will be lost. But the fear that China, say, will be able to make everything more cheaply than America, stems from an old economic fallacy: confusing comparative with absolute advantage. The basic principle that all countries are better off if they specialise in industries and services in which they have a comparative advantage still holds; and it is free trade that enables them to specialise.


Pollyanna, and the absence of a free lunch

Some of those who argue that globalisation has changed some of the core assumptions of economics accuse those who disagree with them of complacency. On the one hand, they imply, stands the vanguard of a new economic paradigm, ready courageously to acknowledge and adapt to big histori­cal changes; on the other are the Pollyannaish defenders of the status quo. Nothing could be further from the truth.

To believe in the threat of inflation and in the continuing benefits of free trade is not to argue smugly for inaction. It is to stress the need for some familiar but painful choices. It means tempering growth with monetary discipline, and finding ways to help those workers who will indeed suffer from for­eign competition without panicking into the wealth-destroy­ing option of protectionism. The striking point about globalisation is not how economics has changed, but how du­rable, and demanding, the discipline’s main ideas remain.


VOCABULARY


1. economic fallacy
ошибочная экономическая посылка

2. absolute advantage
абсолютное преимущество

3. economic paradigm
экономическая система понятия (парадигма)

4. Pollyanna
неисправимый оптимист

5. tempering growth
зд. регулировать темпы роста


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«Inflation»

Topics for discussion
  1. The effect of inflation on economic growth.
  2. The popular thesis that «inflation is dead» - thanks to new technology and increased global competition - is about to face its first real test.
  3. When growth in different countries is synchronised, inflationary pressures build as strong demand in one country spills over into others.
  4. Financial markets hate inflation.
  5. Price stability as the principal formal goal of monetary policy could he an effective weapon to kill inflation.