Interest Rates and Prices In the Long Run.

The article presents a commentary on an earlier article published in this journal titled "Interest Rates and Prices In the Long Run," by Thomas J. Sargent. The author finds that Sargent's most convincing arguments come in the final, theoretical section of his paper, where he develops a simple macro model where stochastic error terms are added to the investment, consumption, money demand, and wage change equations. The author asks two questions of Sargent: why do predictions of inflation have such a modest impact on the interest rates in the sample period and why is postwar U.S. empirical evidence so different from the earlier sample period. The author explains his questions.