Chapter 6 Measuring the Price Level and Inflation

Transcription

1 Chapter 6 Measuring the Price Level and Inflation Overview This chapter takes up the third of the major macroeconomic measures: the rate of inflation. It shows how to avoid the confusion in comparing economic conditions over time created by price changes. The chapter discusses how prices and inflation are measured and how to adjust data to eliminate the effects of price changes. It looks at why high inflation can significantly impair an economy s performance, to the extent that economic policymakers claim that a low and stable rate of inflation is one of their chief objectives. Core Principles No core principles are discussed in this chapter. Important Concepts Covered Price Level Consumer Price Index (CPI) Price Index Rate of Inflation Deflation Nominal Quantity Real Quantity Deflating (a Nominal Quantity) Real Wage Indexing Nominal Interest Rate Real Interest Rate Anticipated Inflation Unanticipated Inflation Fisher Effect Relative Price Zero Inflation Stable Inflation Accelerating Inflation Disinflation Low Inflation Moderate Inflation High Inflation Hyperinflation Price Signal Distortion Hypothesis Downward Nominal Wage Rigidity Hypothesis Zero Bound on Nominal Interest Rates Hypothesis Learning Objectives Copyright 2009 McGraw-Hill Ryerson Limited 1

2 6.1 The Consumer Price Index: Measuring the Price Level 6.2 Inflation 6.3 Adjusting for Inflation Deflating a Nominal Quantity with the CPI Deflating by the CPI versus Deflating by the GDP Deflator Indexing to Maintain Buying Power 6.4 Nominal versus Real Interest Rates Anticipated Inflation and the Fisher Effect Economic Naturalist 6.1: Bad month to take out a mortgage 6.5 Types of Price Changes The Price Level, Relative Prices, and Inflation Terminology Used to Describe Overall Price Change 6.6 The Economic Consequences of Various Types of Inflation Unanticipated Inflation and Income Distribution Anticipated Inflation and Income Distribution Low Inflation, Moderate Inflation, and Economic Growth Disinflation and Economic Growth Deflation and Economic Growth Hyperinflation and Economic Growth High, Accelerating Inflation and Economic Growth In-Class Activities Unemployment, Inflation, and National Output video from the Introductory Economics series. Inflation video from the Economics U$A series. Stagflation video from the Economics U$A series. Inflation calculator from the Bank of Canada ( Investment calculator from the Bank of Canada ( Economic Naturalist Discussion Questions 1. What groups in the economy might actually benefit from high inflation? (Debtors, including homeowners with fixed interest rate mortgages and the government.) 2. Many parents of university students complain that their own university education cost only a fraction of what their child s university education costs. Why does the increasing cost of a university education not necessarily mean that it was a better deal when the parents went to school? (Because the expected wage of a university graduate has also gone up considerably.) 3. Why do some parents enroll their children in plans that pre-pay the cost of a university education for their children, even when the children are so young it is impossible to tell if or when they will go to university? (To lock in a fixed tuition rate and avoid the possible tuition increases due to inflation or other causes.) Copyright 2009 McGraw-Hill Ryerson Limited 2

3 Answers to Text Questions and Problems Answers to Review Questions 1. The CPI measures the cost of buying a particular basket of goods and services, relative to a specified base year. The official basket of goods and services is intended to correspond to the buying patterns of the typical family. However, a family whose buying patterns differ from the average may find that changes in its cost of living are not well captured by the official CPI. For example, if the price of peanut butter rises sharply, the cost of living of a family that buys much more peanut butter than the typical family will increase more than the CPI, all else being equal. 2. The price level measures the cost of a basket of goods and services, relative to a base year. The CPI is one standard measure of the price level. In contrast, the rate of inflation is the annual percentage change in the price level. For example, suppose that the basket of goods and services on which the CPI is based cost $100 in the base year, $150 last year, and $ this year. The price level this year is = 100 x($154.50/$100.00). The inflation rate from last year to this is the percentage increase in the cost of the basket since last year, or 3%. 3. With inflation, increases in nominal quantities may simply reflect higher prices, rather than increased production or purchasing power. For example, a 10% increase in a worker s nominal wage implies a 10% increase in purchasing power if prices are unchanged, but no increase in purchasing power if prices have also risen by 10%. The basic method of adjusting for inflation, called deflating the nominal quantity, is to divide by a price index, such as the CPI. For example, the real wage, equal to the nominal wage divided by a price index, measures the purchasing power of the wage. Unlike nominal wages, real wages at different points in time can be meaningfully compared. 4. In a fully indexed collective agreement, wages each year would automatically be increased at the rate of inflation, preserving the purchasing power of the agreed-upon wage. For example, if prices of consumer goods rise by 2% over the year (that is, the rate of inflation is 2%), a fully indexed wage will also automatically rise by 2%, so that the quantity of goods the worker can purchase is unchanged. 5. The first two sentences are correct; the losses that unanticipated inflation imposes on creditors (for example) are just offset by the gains to debtors. However, there is an overall cost to society when wealth is redistributed arbitrarily. First, risk is increased, which makes people feel worse off. Second, when wealth is determined more by random forces than by hard work and intelligent investment, the incentives to engage in the latter are reduced, harming the efficiency of the economy. Finally, people use up resources attempting to anticipate inflation and protect themselves against it; from society s point of view, these resources are wasted. 6. The real return on any asset is the nominal return (or nominal interest rate) minus the inflation rate. The nominal return on cash is zero, so the real return equals minus the inflation rate. If there is inflation, then the real return on holding cash is reduced (thus acting as a tax on criminals holding large quantities of cash), but if there is deflation, then the real return on holding cash is increased. 7. True, ignoring complications introduced by taxes. Suppose borrower and lender agree on a 2% real return on the loan. If they correctly anticipate that inflation over the life of the loan will be, say, 5%, then setting a 7% nominal interest rate on the loan ensures that the lender receives and the borrower pays a 2% real return, as agreed beforehand. Copyright 2009 McGraw-Hill Ryerson Limited 3

4 8. Deflation is associated with weak or negative economic growth, partly due to deliberate central bank policy and partly due to a reluctance to invest when cash obtains a sufficiently high return. High and accelerating inflation is not associated with low economic growth but is still disliked, both because it makes the future inflation rate difficult to predict and because it may lead either to hyperinflation or to contractionary policies aimed to lower inflation. Hyperinflation is associated with poor economic performance, due to the increased costs of making economic transactions. Answers to Problems 1a. The cost of the basket in the base year is $200 + $600 + $100 + $50, or $950. In the subsequent year, the same basket of goods costs $220 + $640 + $120 + $40, or $1020. The CPI in the subsequent year equals the cost of the basket in that year relative to the base year: 100x($1020/$950) = Since the CPI in the base year is 100, the rate of inflation (equal to the percentage increase in the CPI) between the base year and the subsequent year is 7.4%. b. The family s nominal income rose by 5%, less than the increase in the cost of living. So the family is worse off, in terms of real purchasing power ( )/91.3 = so inflation is 1.75% 2000 ( )/92.9 = so inflation is 2.69% 2001 ( )/95.4 = so inflation is 2.52% 2002 ( )/97.8 = so inflation is 2.25% 2003 ( )/100.0 = so inflation is 2.80% 2004 ( )/102.8 = so inflation is 1.85% 2005 ( )/104.7 = so inflation is 2.20% 2006 ( )/107.0 = so inflation is 1.96% 2007 ( )/109.1 = so inflation is 2.20% Inflation rates throughout the period would be considered low. 3. The table below shows that a 10 percent rise in food prices will have a bigger effect in China and India than in Canada or the United States. Country Share of Food in CPI (%) Canada China India United States Predicted Increase in CPI (%) 4. The question tells us that the real entry-level wage in 2007 is 8 percent lower than the real entrylevel wage in Using the CPI data from problem 2, the real entry-level wage in 2007 was 100x$12.00/111.5 = $10.76 (using 2002 as the base year). The real entry-level wage in 2000 was thus $10.76 divided by 0.92, or $ Again using the CPI data, the nominal entry-level wage in 2000 must have been $11.70 multiplied by the CPI of 0.954, or $ The rate of inflation between 2008 and 2009 (the percentage increase in the price level) is ( )/175 = 5.7%. To keep tax brackets at the same points in terms of real income, the nominal income categories should each be increased by 5.7%. The year-2009 tax schedule should be adjusted to read: Copyright 2009 McGraw-Hill Ryerson Limited 4

5 Family income Tax rate <$21,140 10% $21,141 $31,710 12% $31,711 $52,850 15% $52,851 $84,560 20% >$84,561 25% 6. A consumer who spent $100 in the base year would spend $16.30 on food, $28.50 on shelter, $10.70 on household operations and furnishings, and so on. To buy the goods and services this year that cost $100 in the base year, the consumer would have to increase his spending on food from $16.30 to $17.12 (a 5% rise), on shelter from $28.50 to $31.35 (a 10% rise), and on recreation, education, and reading from $12.10 to $14.52 (a 20% rise). Other expenditures would be the same as in the base year. The total cost of the basket can be found to be $105.99, so the CPI for the current year is Sample Homework Assignment 1. Below are the values of the CPI (multiplied by 100) for the country Gamma for the years 2003 to For each year, beginning with 2004, calculate the rate of inflation from the previous year. Describe what happened to inflation rates between 2003 and You have just graduated from university. You, your older sister, your mother, and your father are comparing the starting salaries in your first jobs. The year you each started your first job, the CPI in that year (multiplied by 100) and your staring salary are given below. Which of you started your first job with the highest real income? Year CPI Starting salary You $32,000 Your father $24,900 Your mother $29,120 Your older sister $26, You are lending $100 to your roommate for a year. You both agree that you should earn a 5% rate of return for the year. a. If you make the loan in the base year, and you expect the inflation rate to be 10% over the year, what nominal rate of interest should you charge your roommate? b. If you charge the interest rate you determined in part a, but the actual inflation rate was 12%, what was your real rate of return on the loan? Multiple Choice Quiz 1. The consumer price index measures which of the following? a. The rate of inflation. b. The rate of deflation. Copyright 2009 McGraw-Hill Ryerson Limited 5

6 c. Real prices. d. The Fisher effect. e. The average price level. 2. A nominal quantity is a. adjusted for inflation. b. measured in terms of its current dollar value. c. measured in physical terms. d. deflated. e. measured in terms of purchasing power. 3. The wage paid to workers measured in terms of purchasing power is the a. real wage. b. nominal wage. c. current wage. d. dollar wage. e. market wage. 4. The practice of increasing a nominal quantity according to changes in the price level to prevent inflation from eroding purchasing power is called a. nominalizing. b. deflating. c. inflating. d. indexing. e. contracting. 5. Which of the following is not a cost of inflation? a. Shoe-leather costs. b. Distortions of the tax system. c. The unexpected redistribution of wealth. d. Interference with long-run planning. e. Psychological costs. 6. The idea that inflation makes market signals difficult to interpret is called a. the signal interpretation hypothesis. b. the price signal distortion hypothesis. c. the downward nominal wage rigidity hypothesis. d. the zero bound on nominal interest rates hypothesis. e. the market bias hypothesis. 7. A situation in which the inflation rate is extremely high is known as a. megainflation. b. hyperinflation. c. hypoinflation. d. metainflation. e. superinflation. 8. The annual percentage increase in the purchasing power of a financial asset is called the a. real interest rate. b. nominal interest rate. c. nominal rate of return. Copyright 2009 McGraw-Hill Ryerson Limited 6

7 d. purchasing power parity. e. asset accumulation ratio. 9. When inflation increases, holding all else constant, which of the following will decrease? a. The real interest rate. b. The nominal interest rate. c. The nominal rate of return. d. The nominal wage rate. e. The price level. 10. The tendency for nominal interest rates to be high when inflation is high is known as the a. inflation effect. b. Fisher effect. c. Keynesian effect. d. Bernanke effect. e. substitution bias effect. Problems/Short Answer 1. Fill in the blanks in the following table: Nominal income Real income CPI ( 100) a b c The table below gives the CPI and the price of gasoline per litre in the country Gamma between 2003 and For each year find the CPI inflation rate and the change in the relative price of gasoline, both from the previous year. Were the changes in the price of gasoline over this period more likely due to inflation or to changes in the gasoline market? Price of gasoline CPI per litre Answer Key to Extra Questions in Instructor s Manual Sample Homework Assignment ( )/120 = 8.3% 2005 ( )/130 = 6.2% 2006 ( )/138 = 4.3% 2007 ( )/144 = 2.1% 2008 ( )/147 = 2.0% Inflation rates fell over the period. Copyright 2009 McGraw-Hill Ryerson Limited 7

8 2. Your mother (real incomes are listed below). You: $29,091. Your father: $30,000. Your mother: $32,000. Your sister: $26,000. 3a. 10% + 5% = 15%. b. 15% 12% = 3%. Multiple Choice 1. e 2. b 3. a 4. d 5. e 6. b 7. b 8. a 9. a 10. b Problems/Short Answer 1a. (275/250) 100 = 110. b. 300 (130/100) = 390. c. 500/(125/100) = The relative price of gasoline is increasing indicating the increases in the nominal price of gasoline are due primarily to changes in the market for gasoline rather than an overall increase in the general price level. Inflation rate % increase in the price of gasoline Relative price of gasoline % 8.7% 6.6% increase % 25% 23% increase % 28% 25% increase % 12.5% 11.5% increase % 8.3% 6.4% increase Copyright 2009 McGraw-Hill Ryerson Limited 8