Experience has taught us that if too much money is chasing too few goods, inflation will be the inevitable result. And as inflation has proven itself to be a costly evil – damaging investment, production and employment –, great efforts have been taken to design a government controlled money system which shall preserve the value of the currency.
Investors in the international bond markets appear to be extremely confident about the outlook for inflation, expecting the loss of purchasing power of money to be low in the coming years. In fact, investors seem to view central banks’ promises to deliver low inflation as extremely credible, as indicated by inflation-linked bond prices. In view of
In virtually all major economies business sentiment indicators are promising additional production and employment gains. Most prominently, international stock market valuations, fueled by brightening expectations of future profitability gains, are regaining lost ground, swiftly moving back towards levels seen before the sharp price correction
What would the world economy and financial markets look like had government controlled central banks not followed a course of relentless increases in credit and fiat money supply? Any attempted answer to this question is sure to trigger a heated debate. In any case, however, answers would clearly depend on the alternative monetary systems that had
Today’s mainstream economics maintains that inflation — defined as an ongoing rise of the economy’s price level over time — is “a prerequisite for a growing and thriving world.” [1] A great number of arguments in support of the “inflationist view” have been put forward. For instance, inflation would be needed to allow real wages and employment
What is the Mises Institute?
The Mises Institute is a non-profit organization that exists to promote teaching and research in the Austrian School of economics, individual freedom, honest history, and international peace, in the tradition of Ludwig von Mises and Murray N. Rothbard.
Non-political, non-partisan, and non-PC, we advocate a radical shift in the intellectual climate, away from statism and toward a private property order. We believe that our foundational ideas are of permanent value, and oppose all efforts at compromise, sellout, and amalgamation of these ideas with fashionable political, cultural, and social doctrines inimical to their spirit.