A common refrain among many economics writers — Paul Krugman, most prominently — is that the unemployment rate has stayed so high because the Fed has kept inflation too low.

“You should be willing to take some risks,” he said on This Week. “What if we had four-percent inflation? We had four-percent inflation during Reagan’s second term. I don’t remember that as a time of dislocation. I remember that as a time when a lot of people feeling good about economic progress.”

We’d all be better off if, Krugman said, if Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke listened to Professor Bernanke, the Princeton University historian of the Great Depression.

Is he right?

Economists Ruediger Bachmann, Tim O. Berg, and Eric Sims have released a study in which they conclude that Krugman and co. are mistaken. Looking at data from the Michigan Survey of Consumers, they sought to determine whether consumers would spend more if expectations of inflation were higher.

They write in summary:

We find that the impact of inflation expectations on the reported readiness to spend on durable goods is statistically insignificant and small in absolute value when compared to other variables, such as household income or expected business conditions. Moreover, it appears that higher expected price changes have an adverse impact on the reported readiness to spend.

Fasten on those “other variables”: household income and expected “business conditions.”

The takeaway, it seems to me, is that the economy is going to get better … when the economy gets better.