Will Rising Interest Rates Cause Inflation?

        Typically, central banks raise interest rates to reign in inflation by making it more expensive for businesses and persons to borrow money and dampening rises in spending. At least that is the theory, and what you would be taught in any intro macro-economics class offered in developed countries. (I don't think developing nations know anything about economics let alone teach it to anyone). 

         A recent post at the Epsilon Theory blog offers a different scenario:

         The reason companies aren’t investing more aggressively in plant and equipment and technology is BECAUSE we have the most accommodative monetary policy in the history of the world, with the easiest money to borrow that corporations have ever seen. Why in the world would management take the risk — and it’s definitely a risk — of investing for real growth when they are so awash in easy money that they can beat their earnings guidance with a risk-free stock buyback? Why in the world would management take the risk — and it’s definitely a risk — of investing for GAAP earnings when they are so awash in easy money that they can hit their pro forma narrative guidance by simply buying profitless revenue? Why in the world would companies take any risk at all when the Fed has eliminated any and all negative consequences for playing it safe? It’s like going to a college where grade inflation makes an A- the average grade. Sure, I could bust a gut to get that A, but why would I do that? 

         In the Bizarro-world that central bankers have created over the past eight years, raising rates isn’t going to have the same inflation-dampening effect that it’s had in past tightening cycles, at least not until you get to much higher rates than you have today. It’s going to accelerate inflation by forcing risk-taking in the real world, which means that the barge is going to have to move faster and faster the more it moves at all. I think that today’s head-scratcher for the world’s central banks — why haven’t our easy money policies created inflation in the real world? — will soon be replaced by a new head-scratcher — why haven’t our tighter money policies tamed inflation in the real world?