The essays in this volume are the product of the NBER's Project on Inflation and reflect a dozen diverse views in one of the nation's central economic problems. Our emphasis here is on diagnosis of the causes of inflation and a description of the effects of inflation, not on specific policy recommendations to end inflation. Many of us have views on what to do about inflation and have not hesitated to speak up inn public about those views, but our papers here are not advocating those views. Instead, we are trying to illuminate some of the economic and political processes involving inflation.