Contributor: Pierre Monnin

Should the ECB Helicopter Adjust Its Dropping Zone?

| 4 February 2015
Monetary, Blog | Tags: Inequality, QE
“Let us suppose that one day a helicopter flies over this community and drops an additional $1000 in bills from the sky…” This pleasant image conveyed by Milton Friedman’s famous metaphor is taken to new heights by Mario Draghi, who promised to inject €60 billion ... continue reading

Monetary Policy and Inequality – What Do Central Bankers Say?

| 24 November 2014
Monetary, Blog | Tags: Central Banks, Inequality
“Benign neglect” perhaps most aptly characterizes the attitude that central bankers have traditionally displayed toward the topic of economic inequality. Indeed, monetary policy and inequality have long been regarded as having nothing more in common than just the fact that they both coexist. In the ... continue reading

Does Inflation Really Hurt the Poor More than the Rich?

| 26 May 2014
Monetary, Blog | Tags: Inequality, Inflation
After being neglected for decades, income and wealth inequality are back at the center of economic discussions. Recent work by the IMF, renowned economists like Joseph Stiglitz (e.g. in his book “The Price of Inequality”), as well as the lively debate generated by Thomas Piketty’s ... continue reading

Inflation and Income Inequality in Developed Economies

| 15 May 2014
Monetary, Working Papers | Tags: Inequality, Inflation
This paper explores the empirical link between income inequality and inflation in ten OECD countries over the period 1971 to 2010. In addition to inflation, we include six control variables ... continue reading