Queuing and the Price Level under Repressed Inflation.

A simple queuing mechanism is incorporated into a model of repressed inflation to reflect the experience of Soviet-type economies. Comparative statics are examined, with particular attention to the effects of a higher money price level. If wage rates are all the same--though thresholds may be heterogeneous in other respects--all households gain from a higher money price. With wage-rate inequality, low-wage-rate households may lose. These conclusions are unaffected if the government transfers to each household an equal share of the additional net revenue it gains from the higher money price. Copyright 1994 by Royal Economic Society.