Tyler Cowen, Columnist

A Little Inflation Is Good for the Conservative Cause

Not only do higher prices reduce the relative value of government debt, they may also make the economy more dynamic.

March 9, 2023 at 12:00 PM UTC

Tyler Cowen is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist, a professor of economics at George Mason University and host of the Marginal Revolution blog.

Not as bad as it’s made out to be.
Photographer: Drew Angerer/Getty Images North America

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For conservatives, current high rates of inflation should not be too upsetting — and not because they might help Republican candidates in the next election. Rather, there are intrinsic reasons that higher inflation, at least for a while, might not be as bad as it looks.

I myself am not happy about an inflation rate of 4% to 5%, which seems embedded in the economy right now. Yet on reflection I am less concerned than I was initially.