Moderate Inflation Versus Hyperinflation

Via Ryan Avent, I learn that Mike Kinsley isn’t too happy with my critique of an earlier column in which he expressed anxiety about inflation.

I’m tempted to get into an argument about whether it’s “bullying” to suggest that if you’re going to write about an economic issue, you might want to study it first. But what I really want to do is take on Kinsley’s suggestion that I was wrong to say that the distinction between Zimbabwe-type hyperinflation and 1970s-type inflation in the United States is “textbook economics.” Kinsley says that he looked at Greg Mankiw’s text and found no such distinction; strange to say, however, it wasn’t Mankiw’s text I had in mind. Instead, I was thinking of another intro text that sells quite a few copies, although not (yet?) as many as Mankiw.

And in that text, the relevant chapter (pdf) makes a clear distinction between Zimbabwe-type hyperinflation and the more moderate type of inflation that afflicted the US and others in the 70s.