Deflation: the Austrian School Perspective

Deflation, today understood mainly as a decrease in price level, is in the eyes of the mainstream economists the threat and danger of the economic development. This view is based on the experience from the Economic Crisis between 1929 and 1933 and later development in Japan. Therefore, the price stability is nowadays comprehended as a non decline in price index; monetary policy actually states the sustainable increase as a goal. The Austrian School of Economics uses the original definition of the words inflation and deflation and defines them as the increase and decrease of money supply. Modern interpretation of these terms means for them a dangerous misunderstanding whose result is misapprehension of causal connections between individual phenomena. This leads not only to incorrect conclusions but, above all, to disruption of the economic system, price and production structure, and development of economic cycles caused by artificial increase in money supply, which brings profit to certain groups