I, personally, think this question has good value for the site and asks a good economic question (or else I would not have asked this question to begin with).
What does everyone think about reopening "Are there any long-term benefits of inflation"? How can the question be made more narrow?
Also, please state why it is a good/bad question. Don't simply say "It is a bad question." Elaborate and give specific reasons as to why you think it is a bad question.
Problems I see:
1) In the first paragraph, it is not mentioned clearly that the unemployment-reduction effect rests crucially on the money supply increase being unanticipated (this is what theory says, and it has been confirmed in practice). It will also be good if "Phillips Curve" was inserted in the text, and in the tags.
2) The title asks for "long-term" benefits of inflation, the text includes one short-term and one long-term supposed benefit, and the last line asks for "either short-term or long-term".
3) The phrase "possible benefits" does not convey clearly that a decrease in unemployment due to lower real wages is not considered a "benefit" by all (we could reduce unemployment even more by setting the wage to zero) -rather, it appears more to refer to whether the alleged effects truly materialize or not.
That the two phenomena more or less are observed is generally accepted. Whether they constitute "benefits" or not is much more heavily debated, due to the obvious political/philosophical aspect (the unemployment issue touches on distributional issues, the "demand effect" on rationality issues).
It falls far short of the standards that we set by consensus. I'm not saying you haven't researched it - you seem like a diligent and thoughtful poster who would understand a very concise technical answer. It's just that this question doesn't reflect that - it reads as though there's very little grounding there in macroeconomics to build on.
Asking for "benefits" is vague, and looks like normative rather than positive economics.
Despite all the editing, the question remains very broad. A good answer would take up a book's worth of text, or at least a chapter in a macroeconomics textbook. That makes it unsuitable for this format.
Questions are put on hold so that they can be edited up to the standard required. If that happens, the question should be reopened. If it doesn't, it should be deleted. This question has been on hold for more than a week, and does not seem to have been raised to the standard we've agreed to maintain.
