The Welfare Costs of Inflation in a Micro-Founded Macroeconometric Model

This paper computes the welfare costs of inflation in an estimated dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model of the U.S. economy. Both steady state and transitional welfare results are reported. I find that a 10 percent inflation entails a steady state welfare cost of 1.9 % of annual consumption. Taking into account trasitional effects, the cost drops to 1.2%. Under some circumstances, the transitional effects can erase most of the steady state welfare losses. The role of nominal frictions such as price/wage sluggishness as well as that of uncertainty are also addressed.