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α: calibrated so average coauthorship-adjusted count equals average raw count
We develop an overlapping-generations model with sticky wages and prices to study the socially optimal inflation rate in the long term. While sticky prices and firms’ productivity growth would yield a positive optimal inflation rate, we show that sticky wages, in combination with empirically plausible changes in productivity over workers’ lives, make moderate deflation optimal. We also study intergenerational conflicts and show that younger voters gain from lower inflation, whereas older voters prefer higher inflation.