Aggregate and Welfare Effects of Redistribution of Wealth Under Inflation and Price-Level Targeting

consequently, have different redistributional properties which is what we explore in this paper. For Canada, which has a positive net asset position with respect to the rest of the world in Canadian dollar-denominated claims, we show that the magnitude of the effects of an unexpected price level increase under IT is larger than under PT. Households’ wealth loss from a price level increase is matched by the gains of the government and foreigners. Even though this redistribution is zerosum, we observe positive effects on GDP due to the wealth loss, the lower value of the debt and its associated fiscal adjustment, and the non-linear effects on work effort of the redistribution of wealth across households. Although the effects on GDP are positive, the direction of the change in the weighted welfare of households depends on the fiscal policy.