Inflation and Saving: A puzzle

Inflation, Holding Gains and Saving

The author is Head of the Economic Statistics and National Accounts Division in the Economics and Statistics Department. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the International Conference on Economic Policy and National Accounting in Inflationary Conditions held at the University of Bergamo in January 1984. The views expressed are those of the author and should not be attributed to ...

Saving Natural Inflation

Slow-roll inflation requires the inflaton field to have an exceptionally flat potential, which combined with measurements of the scale of inflation demands some degree of finetuning. Alternatively, the flatness of the potential could be due to the inflaton’s origin as a pseudo-Goldstone boson, as in Natural Inflation. Alas, consistency with Planck data places the original proposal of Natural In...

Trend Inflation and the Unemployment Volatility Puzzle

I show that the combination of small positive trend inflation with staggered prices may account for the large relative volatilities found in US labor market data. The model does not have any wage rigidity and is hit only by an aggregate technology shock. The calibration procedure uses standard parameter values. Controlling for the sample average of the CPI inflation rate and the degree of price...

The Human Factor: China’s Internal Migration and the Saving Puzzle The Human Factor: China’s Internal Migration and the Saving Puzzle

Filling a gap left by previous literature, this paper finds that many macroeconomic “puzzles” exhibited by the Chinese economy can be explained (at least partially) by the evolution of China’s internal-migration policies. Such policies not only have a profound impact on China’s labor market conditions, but also explain many Chinaspecific phenomena such as its rising saving rate, persistent and ...

The Chinese Saving Puzzle and the Life-Cycle Hypothesis