An Error in the Theory of Seigniorage

IF 3 Q1 ECONOMICS
Petr Mach
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引用次数: 0

Abstract

The article reveals an error in the theory of seigniorage or government revenue from printing money. Friedman, Cagan, Mankiw, and other economists have repeated the definition of seigniorage as the monetary base multiplied by the rate of inflation (or by the growth in the monetary base). This definition, however, contains a logical error in the formula of seigniorage, confusing the growth rate with the growth rate divided by the growth rate plus one. This often-repeated confusion is consequently common in modern economics textbooks. These many authors have omitted Keynes who – almost one hundred years ago – rightly understood seigniorage to be the monetary base multiplied by the rate of money growth divided by the rate of money growth plus one. This paper presents an unambiguous definition and formula of seigniorage and offers a graphical illustration of seigniorage as a function of monetary growth which corresponds to Keynes’s approach. It is shown that such a graph is an analogy to the Laffer curve in explicit taxation.
铸币税理论中的一个错误
这篇文章揭示了铸币税或政府印钞收入理论中的一个错误。弗里德曼、凯根、曼昆和其他经济学家重复了铸币税的定义,即货币基础乘以通货膨胀率(或货币基础的增长率)。然而,这个定义在铸币税公式中包含一个逻辑错误,将增长率与增长率除以增长率加1混淆。因此,这种经常重复的混淆在现代经济学教科书中很常见。这些作者都忽略了凯恩斯,他在近100年前就正确地理解铸币税等于基础货币乘以货币增长率除以货币增长率加1。本文提出了铸币税的明确定义和公式,并提供了铸币税作为货币增长函数的图形说明,这与凯恩斯的方法相对应。结果表明,这种曲线图类似于显性税收中的拉弗曲线。
本文章由计算机程序翻译,如有差异,请以英文原文为准。
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