Inflation and Establishment Turnover

Gaetano Antonolfi, Washington University
David S. Kaplan, Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México

Abstract

We study a channel through which inflation can have effects on the real economy. Using job creation and destruction data from U.S. manufacturing establishments from 1973-1988, we show that both jobs created by new establishments and jobs destroyed by dying establishments are negatively correlated with inflation. These results are robust to controls for the real-business cycle and monetary policy. Over a longer time frame, data on business failures confirm our results obtained from job creation and destruction data. We show that a financial-markets explanation and a nominal-wage rigidities explanation are both consistent with our empirical evidence.