On Skill Heterogeneity, Human Capital, and Inflation

This paper examines the welfare costs of inflation within a monetary dynamic general equilibrium framework with human capital that incorporates endogenous, ex ante skill heterogeneity among workers. Numerical experiments indicate that, overall, welfare costs are more likely to decrease with increases in skill heterogeneity. An implication of this feature is that a greater degree of skill heterogeneity may be associated with a higher tolerance for inflation, consequently implying a positive correlation between agent heterogeneity and inflation. Using a panel of several countries we empirically test this proposition. Our evidence lends some support to this hypothesis.