The classical gold standard has long been associated with long-run price stability. But short-run price variability led critics of the gold standard to propose reforms that look much like modern versions of price-path targeting. This paper uses a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model to examine price dynamics under alternative policy regimes. In the model, a pure inflation target provides more short-run price stability than does the gold standard and, although it introduces a unit root into the price level, it leads to as much long-term price stability as does the gold standard for horizons shorter than 20 years. Relative to these regimes, Fisher's compensated dollar (or pure price-path targeting) reduces inflation uncertainty by an order of magnitude at all horizons. A Taylor rule, with its relatively large weight on output, leads to large uncertainty about inflation at long horizons. This long-run inflation uncertainty can be largely eliminated by introducing an additional response to the deviation of the price level from a desired path.

Abraham, Arpad / Carceles-Poveda , Eva / Cavalcanti, Tiago / Kambourov, Gueorgui / Lambertini, Luisa / Ruhl, Kim / Tavares, Jose
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Gold, Fiat Money, and Price Stability
1Rutgers University, bordo@econ.rutgers.edu
2Risk Analytics, Robert.Dittmar@radian.biz
3Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, gavin@stls.frb.org
Citation Information: The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics. Volume 7, Issue 1, Pages –, ISSN (Online) 1935-1690, DOI: 10.2202/1935-1690.1525, August 2007
Publication History:
- Published Online:
- 2007-08-09
Keywords: gold standard; compensated dollar; inflation targeting


















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