General English Second Semester

Unit: 1

1.What I Believe
2.Tryst with Destiny  
3.The Cabuliwallah 

Types of Inflation

There are several types of inflation's observable in an economy. These can be classified as under: 

1. Creeping, walking, running, and galloping inflation:

This classification is made on the basis of the” speed” with which the prices increase in the economy.

Inflation

The term ’inflation’ is used in many senses and it is difficult to give a generally accepted, precise and scientific definition of the term. Popularly inflation refers to a rise in price-level or fall in the value of money. Kemmerer states that,” inflation is too much currency in relation to the physical volume of business being done”.

Coulburn defines inflation as, “too much money chasing too few goods”. The implication in these definitions is that prices rise due to an increase in the volume of money as compared to the supply of goods. They seek to establish cause and effect relationship between supply of money and the price-level. 

Phases of Business Cycle

A typical or standard business cycle is characterized by: 

1. Recovery 

2. Prosperity 

3 Recession 

4. Depression 

Business Cycles

An important feature of the working of a capitalist economy is the existence of alternating periods of prosperity and depression generally referred to as a ‘business cycle’ or ‘trade cycle’. In a business cycles there are wave like fluctuations in aggregate employment income, output and price-level. The term business cycle has been defined in various ways by different economists. 

• Prof Haberler’s definition is very simple, he says,” The business cycle in the general sense maybe defined as an alternation of periods of prosperity and depression of good and bad trade.” 

Rational Expectation Theory (RATEX)

Meaning:

New classical economics based on rational expectation hypothesis was put forward by Robert Lucas of the University of Chicago. Rational Expectation theory which is the corner stone of recently developed macro-economic theory, popularly called new classical macroeconomics. Friedman’s adaptive expectation theory assumes nominal wages lag behind changes in the price level. This lag in the adjustment of nominal wages to the price-level brings about rising business profits which induces the firms to expand output and employment in the short run, and leads to the reduction in unemployment rate. But according to the Ratex theory, there is no lag in the adjustment of nominal wages consequent to rise in price level. The advocates of this theory further argue that nominal wages are quickly adjusted to any expected changes in the price level. According to the Ratex theory, as a result of increasing aggregate demand, there is no reduction in unemployment rate, the rate of inflation resulting from increasing aggregate demand is fully and correctly anticipated by workers and business firms and get completely and quickly incorporated into the wage agreement resulting in higher prices of products.

Supply Side Economics

The problem of stagflation encountered by USA and UK during the seventies and early eighties when both high inflation and high unemployment prevailed simultaneously did not admit for easy solution through the Keynesian demand management policies, it only worsened the situation.

Against this backdrop, the alternative school of thought, about macroeconomics laid stress on Supply Side of macroeconomic equilibrium, that is, it focused on shift in the aggregate supply curve to the right rather than causing the shift in the aggregate demand curve. Thus Supply side economics prefers to solve the problem of stagflation through the management of aggregate Supply rather than the management of aggregate demand. Further Supply Sides economics stresses the determinants of long run growth instead of causes of short run cyclical movement in the economy. Supply Side economists laid emphasis on the factors that determine the incentives to work, save and invest, which ultimately determine the aggregate supply of the output of the economy.