@SteveRoth there's asset ownership and there are transfers. the quasi-equity position "the state" — consolidating Alaska's govt into the broader entity — has in oil extraction is disinflationary cet paribus. state asset ownership, if that doesn't compromise the quality of deployment, is disinflationary relative to private ownership. if the state went into debt — same as making transfers! — to purchase the asset, the net effect would depend on price. 1/

@SteveRoth if it overpays, inflationary, underpays disinflationary, although in either case the effect would probably relatively minor because the financial positions the transaction is affecting is those of the already rich, less sensitive to marginal income. in fact the price was zero (it's from a tax), so likely net disinflationary, income otherwise to private parties disappears into the state. 2/

@SteveRoth if the state creates a new expenditure, transferring income generated by the asset broadly rather than to the not-very-wealthy, well, that transfer is likely inflationary, whatever it was financed from. analytically, i think we can mostly separate the disinflationary impulse of the tax from the inflationary impulse of the transfer, and would probably score the whole thing as net inflationary, as it's a redistribution of income from rich to less rich. /fin