Keyword: «deflation»

Deflation is one of the interesting economic phenomena. However, researchers do not indulge in deflationary processes that periodically occur in the economic history of a country. The reason is quite simple – deflation is seen as a direct antipode of inflation, associated with a general decline in prices in the national economy. It seems to us that this is a certain simplification. The real processes taking place, for example, in the economy of modern Japan for the last 25–30 years, make us treat deflation as an independent economic problem. For this, the author proposes to use the understanding of deflation as a specific type of macroeconomic imbalance, which has multiple forms of its manifestation, depending on the specific conditions of the country in a particular period of time. This article consistently implements precisely this approach to deflationary processes. We are dealing with excess demand in the money market, which is accompanied by at least four specific types of imbalances in other macroeconomic markets (goods and labor, respectively). On the basis of empirical material on the Russian, American and Japanese economies during periods of deflation, the work describes in detail the causal relationships between macroeconomic markets, which give specificity to deflationary processes in these countries over the past two hundred years. The systematization of deflation types proposed in the article makes it possible to better understand the causes of specific deflation in a particular economy, which will undoubtedly make it easier for subjects of macroeconomic regulation to understand how this “disease” of the national economy can be overcome with lower economic costs.

The correct definition of the type of macroeconomic imbalance allows the state and the central bank to effectively influence the national economy, returning it to a position close to equilibrium. The article examines in detail the types of macroeconomic imbalance, shows their normal and abnormal types. The definition of "normality-abnormality" is based on direct or reverse causal relationships between all markets, which allow us to talk about the relationships between them, which can either contribute to an increase in national economic efficiency or a decrease, depending on the specific relationship that develops in one or another period. The stated hypothesis is tested on the empirical material of the Russian economy in 1999–2017. As a result, a conclusion was made on the whole about the effective actions of regulatory entities in a given period of time, covering actually two economic development cycles of our economy.