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Forecasts of the return of inflation have been greatly exaggerated.

Today, I want to discuss several “Flations,” from De-flation to Re-flation to In-flation and its bastard offspring, Hyper-inflation.

Inflation occurs when one or more factors combine to drive prices higher. Often, wage pressures raise prices for good and services, filtering into the general economy (1960s). Sometimes, the combination of a weakening dollar and rising commodity prices send input costs higher, which kicks off an inflationary spiral (1970s). Third, there are times when the cost of capital becomes so cheap it sends anything priced in dollars or debt off into an upwards spiral of (2,000s).

But Inflation is not inevitable. There are numerous countervailing forces that have been at work for much of the past 50 years. The three big Deflation drivers: 1) Technology, which creates massive economies of scale, especially in digital products like Software; 2) Robotics/Automation, which efficiently create more physical goods at lower prices; and 3) Globalization and Labor Arbitrage, which sends work to lower cost regions, making goods and services less expensive.

Put into this context, Inflation is periodic, driven by specific events; Deflation is consistent, the background state of the modern economy. To fully understand this requires grasping how scarcity and abundance act as the drivers of the price of labor and goods. My suspicion is many economists who came of age during earlier eras of inflation fail to discern how the world has changed since.

Consider what this combination implies: the dominant modern world “flation” tends to be biased more towards falling than rising prices. We live in an era of Deflation, punctuated by occasional spasms of Inflation. This also suggests that fears of inflation are likely to be more overstated, even with low monetary rates and high fiscal stimulus.

The net result: Forecasters have been over-estimating inflation by more than a little and hyper-inflation by more than a lot. Indeed, the Fed and most economists got this wrong in the 2,000s, radically under-estimating how the novelty of ultra-low rates, high employment, and weak dollar caused prices to go higher.

Then the Great Financial Crisis came along, and in its aftermath, a persistent underemployment. This led to a lot of slack in the labor force, even as we got below 4% unemployment. The economy adapted and adjusted as intangibles like software ate the world. Post Covid, we should see hiring and lots of pent up demand and a transitory bout of modest inflation. But event hat is likely to be much less of a threat than it has been in prior decades.

Source:

But not to the old school economists. They need to reconfigure their models of what causes inflation and deflation. Despite being wrong for (literally) the past two decades, I have seen little evidence they are interested in changing their fundamental concept of what drives prices higher.

Milton Friedman said, “Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon” — 50 years ago, in . The world has changed dramatically since. I wish economists understanding of inflation would change also.

Previously:
(July 21, 2014)

(June 25, 2018)

See also:
If Anyone Can Make Investors Happy, It’s Janet Yellen (, February 11, 2021)

Four More Reasons to Worry About U.S. Inflation (, February 10, 2021)