Optimal monetary policy with international trade in intermediate inputs

This paper examines optimal monetary policy in a two-country New Keynesian model with international trade in intermediate inputs. We derive the loss function of a cooperative monetary policymaker and find that the optimal monetary policy must target intermediate-goods price inflation rates, final-goods price inflation rates, final-goods output gaps, and relative-price gaps. We use the welfare loss under the optimal monetary policy as a benchmark to evaluate the welfare implications of three Taylor-type monetary policy rules. A main finding is that the degree of price stickiness at the stage of intermediate-goods production is a key factor to determine which policy rule should be followed. Specifically, when the degree of price stickiness at the stage of intermediate-goods production is high, the policymaker should follow intermediate-goods PPI-based Taylor rule, whereas CPI-based Taylor rule should be followed when the degree of price stickiness at the stage of intermediate-goods production is intermediate or low.     

数量规则还是利率规则？——我国转型时期量价混合型货币规则的理论基础

本文对我国货币政策转型时期兼顾数量和价格的货币政策调控实践进行了深入的分析。在货币数量论和货币效用模型的基础上,从理论上阐明了货币数量规则与利率价格规则的等价关系,并构建了符合中国货币政策实践的数量与价格混合型货币政策规则。这对于更好地理解我国货币政策转型时期的量价混合型货币政策操作具有重要的理论和现实意义。相关推论表明,正是由于数量和价格混合型货币规则,在利率低于均衡水平的情形下,中国的货币增速并未引发恶性通胀;修正的物价稳定泰勒原理表明,利率调整幅度小于通胀变化仍能够实现物价稳定。对中国的经验分析支持了理论和推论结果。在利率市场化基本完成和流动性格局逆转的当下,货币政策价格调控方式转型的必要性和迫切性日益上升,转型的条件日趋成熟。     

数量规则还是利率规则？——我国转型时期量价混合型货币规则的理论基础

本文对我国货币政策转型时期兼顾数量和价格的货币政策调控实践进行了深入的分析。在货币数量论和货币效用模型的基础上,从理论上阐明了货币数量规则与利率价格规则的等价关系,并构建了符合中国货币政策实践的数量与价格混合型货币政策规则。这对于更好地理解我国货币政策转型时期的量价混合型货币政策操作具有重要的理论和现实意义。相关推论表明,正是由于数量和价格混合型货币规则,在利率低于均衡水平的情形下,中国的货币增速并未引发恶性通胀;修正的物价稳定泰勒原理表明,利率调整幅度小于通胀变化仍能够实现物价稳定。对中国的经验分析支持了理论和推论结果。在利率市场化基本完成和流动性格局逆转的当下,货币政策价格调控方式转型的必要性和迫切性日益上升,转型的条件日趋成熟。     

Inflation and Asset Returns in a Monetary Economy

Postwar U.S. data are characterized by negative correlations between real equity returns and inflation and by positive correlations between real equity returns and money growth. These patterns are closely matched quantitatively by an equilibrium monetary asset pricing model. The model also implies negative correlations between expected asset returns and expected inflation, and it predicts that the inflation-asset return correlation will be more strongly negative when inflation is generated by fluctuations in real economic activity than when it is generated by monetary fluctuations.     

Should a monetary policymaker look at money?

This paper examines whether monetary indicators are useful in implementing optimal discretionary monetary policy when the policymaker has incomplete information about the environment. We find that money does not contain useful information for the policymaker, if we calibrate the model to the U.S. economy. If money demand were to be appreciably less variable, observations on money could be useful in response to productivity shocks but would be harmful in response to money-demand shocks. We provide an incomplete information example where equilibrium welfare declines when the money-demand volatility decreases.     

Inside–outside money competition

We study how competition from privately supplied currency substitutes affects monetary equilibria. Whenever currency is inefficiently provided, inside money competition plays a disciplinary role by providing an upper bound on equilibrium inflation rates. Furthermore, if “inside monies” can be produced at a sufficiently low cost, outside money is driven out of circulation. Whenever a ‘benevolent’ government can commit to its fiscal policy, sequential monetary policy is efficient and inside money competition plays no role.     

Trend Inflation, Taylor Principle, and Indeterminacy

Positive trend inflation shrinks the determinacy region of a basic New Keynesian dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model when monetary policy is conducted by a contemporaneous interest rate rule. Neither the Taylor principle, which requires the inflation coefficient to be greater than one, nor the generalized Taylor principle, which requires that the nominal interest rate to be raised by more than the increase in inflation in the long run, is a sufficient condition for local determinacy of equilibrium. This finding holds for different types of Taylor rules, inertial policy rules, and price indexation schemes. Therefore, regardless of the theoretical setup, the monetary literature on interest rate rules cannot disregard average inflation in both theoretical and empirical analyses.     

Equilibrium implications of interest rate smoothing

We introduce a macro-finance model in which monetary authorities adjust the money supply by targeting not only output and inflation but also the slope of the yield curve. We study the impact of McCallum-type rules on capital growth, the volatility of interest rates, the spread between long- and short-term rates, and the persistence of monetary shocks. Our model supports the Federal Reserve's choice to incorporate financial data in their policy decisions and expand the monetary base to decrease the nominal interest rate spread at the cost of lower expected long-term growth.     

Tight money and inflation: Further Results

The Sargent-Wallace results on inflationary effects of monetary restraint are considered in a Sidrauski money growth model when the utility function is unrestricted except for separability. Temporary monetary tightening will eventually lead to higher inflation when the deficit is fixed only if the elasticity of money demand with respect to the money growth rate is less than unity. It is also shown that for inflation to rise immediately further requires the elasticity with respect to the nominal interest rate to be no less than unity.     

Money demand interest elasticity and monetary policy effectiveness

This paper provides a theoretical basis for discretionary monetary policies being less effective as money demand is more sensitive to interest rates and less effective in checking recession than inflation. It cites speed of response as an important dimension of effectiveness in the policies, arguing that lagged responses diminish effectiveness by increasing prospects for destabilizing performances. It then illustrates how responses can be less rapid as money demand is more sensitive to interest rates and, providing that money demand interest sensitivity exceeds a threshold value, less rapid when the economy is short of full employment.     

居民风险偏好与中国货币政策的宏观经济效应——基于DSGE模型的数量分析

当前,我国宏观经济形势复杂多变,货币政策实施效果的影响因素随之呈现多样化特征。在此背景下,本文试图以风险偏好为研究视角,对我国居民风险偏好水平变动与货币政策宏观经济效应之间的关系进行分析。本文以标准新凯恩斯模型为基础,构造符合我国宏观经济现实特征的DSGE(动态随机一般均衡)模型,并对转型时期的最优混合型货币政策规则进行研究;为进一步强调货币在中国宏观经济波动中所扮演的重要角色,模型中引入消费和实际货币余额不可分的跨期效用函数形式。研究结果表明:(1)包含名义货币增长的混合型泰勒规则拟合我国转型时期的货币政策规则效果最佳,因此货币供应量仍是重要的政策工具;(2)与可分性模型相比,不可分模型拟合我国宏观经济现实特征的效果更优。在不可分效用函数下,与货币供应量相关的实际货币余额将影响经济的产出缺口和通货膨胀,使得居民风险偏好成为决定货币政策效果的重要因素。具体而言,当居民风险偏好水平上升时,货币政策对我国宏观经济波动的影响随之增强。因此,在选择货币政策实施时点上,应充分考虑市场中的风险偏好情况,从而更好地发挥货币政策调控宏观经济的职能。     

Inflation persistence: Alternative interpretations and policy implications

In this paper, I consider the policy implications of two alternative structural interpretations of observed inflation persistence, which correspond to two alternative specifications of the new Keynesian Phillips curve (NKPC). The first specification allows for some degree of intrinsic persistence by way of a lagged inflation term in the NKPC. The second is a purely forward-looking model, in which expectations farther into the future matter and coefficients are time-varying. In this specification, most of the observed inflation persistence is attributed to fluctuations in the underlying inflation trend, which are a consequence of monetary policy rather than a structural feature of the economy. With a simple quantitative exercise, I illustrate the consequences of implementing monetary policy, assuming a degree of intrinsic persistence that differs from the true one. The results suggest that the costs of implementing a stabilization policy when the policymaker overestimates the degree of intrinsic persistence are potentially higher than the costs of ignoring actual structural persistence; the result is more clear-cut when the policymaker minimizes a welfare-based loss function.     

居民风险偏好与中国货币政策的宏观经济效应——基于DSGE模型的数量分析

当前,我国宏观经济形势复杂多变,货币政策实施效果的影响因素随之呈现多样化特征。在此背景下,本文试图以风险偏好为研究视角,对我国居民风险偏好水平变动与货币政策宏观经济效应之间的关系进行分析。本文以标准新凯恩斯模型为基础,构造符合我国宏观经济现实特征的DSGE(动态随机一般均衡)模型,并对转型时期的最优混合型货币政策规则进行研究;为进一步强调货币在中国宏观经济波动中所扮演的重要角色,模型中引入消费和实际货币余额不可分的跨期效用函数形式。研究结果表明:(1)包含名义货币增长的混合型泰勒规则拟合我国转型时期的货币政策规则效果最佳,因此货币供应量仍是重要的政策工具;(2)与可分性模型相比,不可分模型拟合我国宏观经济现实特征的效果更优。在不可分效用函数下,与货币供应量相关的实际货币余额将影响经济的产出缺口和通货膨胀,使得居民风险偏好成为决定货币政策效果的重要因素。具体而言,当居民风险偏好水平上升时,货币政策对我国宏观经济波动的影响随之增强。因此,在选择货币政策实施时点上,应充分考虑市场中的风险偏好情况,从而更好地发挥货币政策调控宏观经济的职能。     

Money and inflation in the euro area: A case for monetary indicators?

This paper examines inflation indicators for the euro area by studying the relationship between inflation, output, money and interest rates, using data spanning 1980–2001. The central finding is that both the output gap and the real money gap (the difference between the real money stock and the long-run equilibrium real money stock) contain considerable information regarding future inflation. In contrast, the Eurosystem's money-growth indicator (the difference between nominal money growth and a reference value), the prominent “first pillar” in its monetary strategy, contains little information about future inflation, and no information beyond that contained in the output and real money gaps. The predictive performance of the output gap has improved compared to that in a previous version of this paper, most likely because of better estimation methods.     

A General Theory (and Some Evidence) of Expectation Traps in Monetary Policy

I show that multiple equilibria are a general property of economies under full monetary policy discretion. Three simple conditions are sufficient to rule out, generically, a unique equilibrium in a static economy. The key departure from Barro and Gordon (1983) is to consider bounded welfare costs of inflation. I also show that in a two Markov equilibrium economy the inflation response to certain perturbations is, generically, qualitatively different in each equilibrium. Finally, I discuss some evidence on inflation dynamics that supports the hypothesis that U.S. monetary policy was caught in an expectation trap during the high inflation episode of the 1970s.     

Post-Keynesian money endogeneity evidence in G-7 economies

Post-Keynesian theory of money endogeneity emphasizes the importance of bank loans causing money supply changes. Thus, the proponents of endogenous money supply assert banks create money by meeting money demands of economic agents. Money is said to originate as bank-created loans from deposits, which in turn create more loans under the endogenous money supply. The traditional money supply theory asserts that deposits create money, so money is exogenously created. This paper provides new evidence on endogenous money supply across G-7 economies over 26 years using quarterly data with controls for monetary regime change effects. Bank loans cause money supply, hence money is endogenous and the monetary regime effect appears to hold as crucial factors in money supply theory. Money supply behavior is exogenous during two short periods in the UK and the US when monetary targeting policies were in place.     

How Important Is Money in the Conduct of Monetary Policy?

I consider some of the leading arguments for assigning an important role to tracking the growth of monetary aggregates when making decisions about monetary policy. First, I consider whether ignoring money means returning to the conceptual framework that allowed the high inflation of the 1970s. Second, I consider whether models of inflation determination with no role for money are incomplete, or inconsistent with elementary economic principles. Third, I consider the implications for monetary policy strategy of the empirical evidence for a long‐run relationship between money growth and inflation. And fourth, I consider reasons why a monetary policy strategy based solely on short‐run inflation forecasts derived from a Phillips curve may not be a reliable way of controlling inflation. I argue that none of these considerations provides a compelling reason to assign a prominent role to monetary aggregates in the conduct of monetary policy.     

Real effects of anticipated and unanticipated money: Some problems of estimation and hypothesis testing

The paper addresses two issues that arise in estimation and testing of the real effects of anticipated and unanticipated money. First it is shown that identification of the effects of unanticipated (or unperceived) monetary growth on real output is possible only if the a priori restriction is imposed that monetary growth does not depend on unanticipated (or unperceived) output. Second, the existing empirical work of Barro and others does not allow for three known channels through which money can affect real variables. These are (1) past and present anticipations of future monetary growth (the inflation tax channel), (2) expectations of monetary growth in a given period conditioned at various preceding dates (the Fischer-Phelps-Taylor effect) and (3) past and present revisions in forecasts of future monetary growth. The presence of the first of these would mean that alternative open-loop monetary growth rules have real effects. The presence of the other two implies that monetary feedback rules can have real effects. Omission of the first channel can lead to biased estimates of the effects of past anticipated monetary growth. Potentially serious observational equivalence problems are associated with the other two.     

Inflation dynamics: A cross-country investigation

We document that “persistent and lagged” inflation (with respect to output) is a world-wide phenomenon in that these short-run inflation dynamics are highly synchronized across countries. In particular, the average cross-country correlation of inflation is significantly and systematically stronger than that of output, while the cross-country correlation of money growth is essentially zero. We investigate whether standard monetary models driven by monetary shocks are consistent with the empirical facts. We find that neither the new Keynesian sticky-price model nor the sticky-information model can fully explain the data. An independent contribution of the paper is to provide a simple solution technique for solving general equilibrium models with sticky information.