The Theory of Inflation presents in one volume a comprehensive description of the historical inflation record, surveys the current state of knowledge on the fundamental forces that cause inflation and the mechanisms that propagate it, and examines the costs of inflation and the problems of achieving price stability.

PART I THE PHENOMENON TO BE EXPLAINED 1. Anna J. Schwartz (1973), ‘Secular Price Change in Historical Perspective’ 2. E.H. Phelps Brown and Sheila V. Hopkins (1956), ‘Seven Centuries of the Prices of Consumables, compared with Builders’ Wage-Rates’ 3. Nigel W. Duck (1993), ‘Some International Evidence on the Quantity Theory of Money’ PART II SURVEYS OF THE THEORY OF INFLATION 4. David Laidler and Michael Parkin (1975), ‘Inflation: A Survey’ 5. Bennett T. McCallum (1990), ‘Inflation: Theory and Evidence’ PART III INFLATION DYNAMICS 6. Philip Cagan (1956), ‘The Monetary Dynamics of Hyperinflation’ 7. Maurice Obstfeld and Kenneth Rogoff (1983), ‘Speculative Hyperinflations in Maximizing Models: Can We Rule Them Out?’ 8. Thomas J. Sargent and Neil Wallace (1981), ‘Some Unpleasant Monetarist Arithmetic’ PART IV THE COST OF INFLATION 9. Stanley Fischer (1981), ‘Towards an Understanding of the Costs of Inflation: II’ 10. Max Gillman (1993), ‘The Welfare Cost of Inflation in a Cash-in-Advance Economy with Costly Credit’ 11. Wouter J. Den Haan (1990), ‘The Optimal Inflation Path in a Sidraiski-Type Model with Uncertainty’ PART V STOPPING INFLATION 12. Peter Howitt (1990), ‘Zero Inflation as a Long Term Target for Monetary Policy’ 13. Thomas J. Sargent (1982), ‘The Ends of Four Big Inflation’s’ 14. Yoshio Suzuki (1985), ‘Japan’s Monetary Policy Over the Past 10 Years’ 15. Allan H. Meltzer (1993), ‘Some Lessons from the Great Inflation’s’ PART VI THE POSITIVE THEORY OF MONETARY POLICY 16. Robert J. Barro and David B. Gordon (1983), ‘A Positive Theory of Monetary Policy in a Natural Rate Model’ 17. Keith Blackburn and Michael CHRISTENSEN (1989), ‘Monetary Policy and Policy Credibility: Theories and Evidence’ 18. David Romer (1993), ‘Openness and Inflation: Theory and Evidence’ 19. Jakob De Haan and Jan Egbert Sturm (1992), ‘The Case for Central Bank Independence’