Is deflation costly after all? The perils of erroneous historical classifications
修正19世纪价格测量误差后，发现美国通缩期间工业产出增长降幅实际为4.5至7.6个百分点，而非此前估计的2个百分点，英国数据也支持通缩与实体经济负相关。
Summary I estimate average economic activity during periods of inflation and deflation while accounting for measurement errors in 19th century prices. These measurement errors lead to underestimation (overestimation) of economic activity during periods of inflation (deflation). By exploiting multiple deflation indicators, it is possible to recover the true relationship; the shortfall of US industrial production growth during periods of deflation ranges from −4.5 pp to −7.6 pp, instead of −2 pp. I also find a negative relationship between deflation and real activity in the UK. I then examine the cross‐country variation in the estimates for eleven countries. The patterns are consistent with stronger biases for countries with more serious measurement errors in prices.