Measuring the welfare cost of inflation in South Africa

Abstract

In this paper, we estimate the long-run equilibrium relationship between money balance as a ratio of income and the Treasury bill rate for the period of 1965:02 to 2007:01, and in turn use the relationship to obtain welfare cost estimates of inflation. Using the Johansen technique, we estimate a log-log specification and a semi-log model of the above relationship. Based on the fits of the specifications, we decided to rely more on the welfare cost measure obtained under the log-log money demand model. Our estimates suggest that the welfare cost of inflation for South Africa ranges between 0.34% and 0.67% of GDP, for a band of 3-6% of inflation. Thus, it seems that the South African Reserve Bank’s current inflation target band of 3-6% is not too poorly designed in terms of welfare.