Monetary constitution, political-economic regime, and long-term inflation

Empirical data about inflation in different countries for about two hundred years since 1800 demonstrate the importance of monetary regimes or constitutions as to the long-term inflationary bias of the respective currencies. Regimes binding the hands of government are less inflation-prone than others. This empirical fact is a consequence of political competition inducing governments to favor inflationary monetary policies. © 2001 Kluwer Academic Publishers.