Inflation: Proceedings Of A Conference Held By The International Economic Association (international Economic Association Series)

THE Conference at Elsinore, the proceedings of which are recorded in this volume, represents a last testimony to the great contribution that Erik Lindahl made to the work and development of the International Economic Association. He served on its Executive Committee from 1953 and was President from 1956 to 1959. The Conference on Inflation held at Elsinore, represented his choice of subject. It was he who, after brief discussion with some of his colleagues on the Executive Committee, planned its agenda and content and persuaded the writers of papers to comply with his concept of their tasks. As the senior representative of Scandinavia on the occasion when the International Economic Association first met in a Scandinavian country, it was he who played the chief part in choosing Elsinore for our meeting-place and in organizing the hospitable welcome which we received. As both President and host, a specially heavy burden fell on him throughout the Conference. Yet he presided with all his customary patience, good temper and wisdom over the proceedings of the Council of the Association and subsequently played a major part in the discussions that took place both in the Conference itself and through meal-times and intervals. We knew that he had been a gravely sick man through the preceding months. We realized in some degree what the Conference was taking out of him. But there were none, I think, who did not feel a grave personal shock when, within a few months, he was dead. The absence of his wisdom, his scholarship, his patient determination to find the best solution to every problem has been a very grievous loss to the International Economic Association, of which those of us who have had the responsibility of succeeding to his tasks have become ever increasingly aware. This is not the place in which to attempt to assess Erik Lindahl's wider contributions to economics generally and to that great Swedish tradition which has contributed so much to it both as an academic subject and, through the distinguished Swedish economists who have played so great a part in the United Nations, to the welfare of the world. For all of us who knew him, Erik Lindahl represented the epitome of an academic scholar -thorough, patient, cautious, but always humane and sensitive. Yet in the Elsinore Conference we saw another side also of Xl ## Erik Lindahl Lindahl. Even those of us who may have disagreed with him over minutiae could not but be impressed by the feeling that to him inflation was not a mere academic issue. It was a piece of wilful administrative carelessness which was doing infinite damage to the opportunities of the world to make ordered progress. It was a thing which had to be mastered and eradicated. And the first step to doing this was to spread understanding of the disease, its causes and its potential cures. He did not, I believe, at all share the feeling of some of us that there was a difficult dilemma of choice between progress and the avoidance of inflation. Thus with deep sincerity he felt able to concentrate on exorcizing the devil of inflation. But all this was a part of Lindahl's essential humanity. Error was, as he saw it, doing damage to human welfare and error must be eliminated. The world is much the poorer for his going. This volume should have been his. He was to edit it and it would have borne the signs of his scholarship. It has had to be prepared for press without him. He would have wished to thank all those who contributed: Dr. Berger-Lieser who helped Front Matter....Pages i-xiii Front Matter....Pages 1-1 A General Survey of Post-War Inflation....Pages 3-18 Internal Factors Causing and Propagating Inflation: I....Pages 19-36 Internal Factors Causing and Propagating Inflation: II....Pages 37-53 Internal Factors Causing and Propagating Inflation: III....Pages 54-62 The Effects of Post-War Inflation on Business Cycles and Economic Growth....Pages 63-72 The Effects of Post-War Inflation on the Distribution of Income....Pages 73-92 Front Matter....Pages 93-93 The Problem of Fixing a Norm for the Value of Money....Pages 95-111 Should we Have Index Loans?....Pages 112-126 Front Matter....Pages 127-127 The Co-Ordination of Policies for full Employment and Price Stability....Pages 129-146 Monetary Policy — as a Weapon Against Inflation....Pages 147-163 The Control of Inflation by Monetary and Credit Policy....Pages 164-184 Fiscal Policy as a Weapon to Control Inflation....Pages 185-197 The Relative Responsibilities of Governments and Central Banks in Controlling Aggregate Demand....Pages 198-217 Front Matter....Pages 219-219 Labour Union Power and Cost-Inflation....Pages 221-232 Wages and Inflation....Pages 233-247 Wage Inflation in Post-War Finland....Pages 248-263 Front Matter....Pages 265-265 The Interaction of Inflation in Different Countries....Pages 267-284 The Rôle of the International Monetary Fund in Promoting Price Stability....Pages 285-292 The Rôle of International Organizations in Promoting Price Stability....Pages 293-303 Improving World Liquidity....Pages 304-314 Front Matter....Pages 315-315 The Applicability of ‘Orthodox Monetary Remedies’ to Developed and Under-Developed Countries....Pages 317-331 Problems of Inflation Under Socialism....Pages 332-341 Inflation in Latin America....Pages 342-358 Front Matter....Pages 359-359 Summary Record of the Debate....Pages 361-506 Back Matter....Pages 507-510