Title

Political Regimes and the Cost of Disinflation

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

10-2008

Publication Source

Journal of Money, Credit and Banking

Abstract

This study investigates, using data from 1960 to 1998, whether the nature of political regimes can help explain cross-national and intertemporal variations in the cost of disinflationary policies, as measured by the sacrifice ratio. We show that, ceteris paribus, right-wing governments have lower costs of disinflations than left-wing governments. We argue this is due to a superior credibility, resulting from their stronger anti-inflation reputations. In addition (and in marked contrast to previous studies), we find that when we control for political regimes, trade openness, and other standard factors in this literature, central bank independence has no significant effect on the sacrifice ratio.

Inclusive pages

1541–1554

ISBN/ISSN

0022-2879

Comments

Permission documentation is on file.

Publisher

John Wiley & Sons

Volume

40

Peer Reviewed

yes

Issue

7

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