Optimal discretionary monetary policy in a micro-founded model with a zero lower bound on nominal interest rate

This paper investigates optimal discretionary monetary policy under the zero lower bound on the nominal interest rate (ZLB) in the case of a distorted steady state due to monopoly and taxation. Solving a fully nonlinear micro-founded (FNL) model using a global method, I find that the central bank in a more distorted economy would cut the interest rate less aggressively under a particularly adverse demand shock. This occurs because inflation and nominal interest rates are higher on average, making the ZLB less likely to bind and causing the economy to escape from the ZLB sooner. However, the social planner would choose the optimal inflation rate of approximately zero. The result emerges because the unconditional benefit of avoiding the ZLB is not big enough to offset the cost of higher relative price dispersion when inflation is significantly positive. In addition, I show that the conventional linear-quadratic (LQ) method is inaccurate in the case of a sufficiently distorted steady state.     

Ramsey policies in a small open economy with sticky prices and capital

This paper analyzes jointly optimal fiscal and monetary policies in a small open economy with capital and sticky prices. We allow for trade in consumption goods under perfect international risk-sharing. We consider balanced-budget fiscal policies where authorities use distortionary taxes on labor and capital together with monetary policy using the nominal interest rate. First, as long as a symmetric equilibrium is considered, the steady state in an open economy is isomorphic to that of a closed economy. Second, sticky prices’ allocations are almost indistinguishable from flexible prices allocations both in open and closed economies. Third, the open economy dimension delivers results that are qualitatively similar to those of a closed economy but with significant quantitative changes. Tax rates are both more volatile and more persistent to undo the distortions implied by terms of trade fluctuations.     

Optimal fiscal and monetary policy with occasionally binding zero bound constraints

This paper studies optimal fiscal and monetary policy when the nominal interest rate is subject to the zero lower bound (ZLB) constraint in a stochastic New Keynesian economy. In the baseline model calibrated to match key features of the U.S. economy, it is optimal for the government to increase its spending when at the ZLB in the stochastic environment by about 60 percent more than it would in the deterministic environment. The presence of uncertainty creates a unique time-consistency problem if the steady state is inefficient. Although access to government spending policy increases welfare in the face of a large deflationary shock, it decreases welfare during normal times as the government reduces the nominal interest rate less aggressively before reaching the ZLB.     

Dealing with a liquidity trap when government debt matters: Optimal time-consistent monetary and fiscal policy

How does the need to preserve government debt sustainability affect the optimal monetary and fiscal policy response to a liquidity trap? To provide an answer, we employ a small stochastic New Keynesian model with a zero bound on nominal interest rates and characterize optimal time-consistent stabilization policies. We focus on two policy tools, the short-term nominal interest rate and debt-financed government spending. The optimal policy response to a liquidity trap critically depends on the prevailing debt burden. While the optimal amount of government spending is decreasing in the level of outstanding government debt, future monetary policy is becoming more accommodative, triggering a change in private sector expectations that helps to dampen the fall in output and inflation at the outset of the liquidity trap.     

How does interest rate policy affect inflation? A simple general equilibrium model with the interest rate as the policy instrument

This paper analyses the connection between the assumptions often made on the utility functions of economic agents when general equilibrium is considered. Concretely, we analyse the effect of certain assumptions regarding the elasticity of marginal utility for both the existence of equilibrium and, assuming equilibrium exists, for the effect that raising the nominal interest rate has on the equilibrium inflation rate. Typical macroeconomic wisdom states that an increase in the interest rate will decrease inflation, and this seems to have been the basis for real-life macroeconomic policy in several countries. However, this wisdom is based on models in which the money supply, and not the interest rate, is the policy instrument. Using a very simple general equilibrium model of intertemporal consumption, this paper finds sufficient conditions for the negative relationship to hold (and for it not to hold) in the short run, when monetary policy is characterised by a given nominal interest rate. Above all, it is shown how the relative risk aversion characteristics that are assumed of the economic agents are important.     

Optimal monetary policy under incomplete markets and aggregate uncertainty: A long-run perspective

This paper examines the role of monetary policy in an environment with aggregate risk and incomplete markets. In a two-period overlapping-generations model with aggregate uncertainty, optimal monetary policy attains the ex-ante Pareto optimal allocation. This policy aims to stabilize the savings rate in the economy by changing real returns of nominal bonds via variation in expected inflation. Optimal expected inflation is procylical and on average higher than without uncertainty. Simple inflation targeting rules closely approximate the optimal monetary policy.     

Quantitative easing and the loan to collateral value ratio

We study optimal monetary policy in a New Keynesian model at the zero bound interest rate where households use cash alongside house equity borrowing to conduct transactions. The amount of borrowing is limited by a collateral constraint. When either the loan to value ratio declines or house prices fall, we observe a decrease in the money multiplier. We argue that the central bank should respond to the fall in the money multiplier and therefore to the reduction in house prices or the loan to collateral value ratio. We also find that optimal monetary policy generates a large and persistent fall in the money multiplier in response to the drop in the loan to collateral value ratio.     

Dynamic control of rural–urban migration

This study investigates the optimal urbanization control of an underdeveloped economy by specifying a simple dynamic rural–urban model in which the urban sector bears both an intertemporal positive externality and a simultaneous negative externality. The dynamic optimization problem is solved for the political intervention of the central government in an intersectoral population distribution with taxes and subsidies. Our analysis provides the following results: (i) a big-push policy that leads an economy to a higher-income steady state with urbanization is not necessarily desirable if the government cannot borrow money at a sufficiently low interest rate; (ii) in order to sustain an appropriate urbanization speed, urbanization control policy should have a switch: the urban sector should be subsidized in order to accelerate rural–urban migration in early stages of development, and taxed to decelerate and eventually cease the migration in later stages.     

Measuring the welfare costs of inflation in a life-cycle model

In a neoclassical growth model with life-cycle households in which money is held to satisfy a cash-in-advance constraint, the optimal steady state inflation rate is absurdly high: in excess of 20%. Lump-sum, age-independent money injections twist and flatten the lifetime profile of utility, making this profile look more like the one that would be chosen by a planner. The cost of monetary finance of lump-sum payments is the distortion introduced to the labor-leisure choice.     

The monetary policy strategy of the Bank of England in 2020–21: An assessment

Excessive money creation during the Covid pandemic has resulted in Britain's worst episode of inflation since 1990–91. The backdrop to this failure of monetary policy is the Bank of England's aggregate demand/aggregate supply framework together with the Monetary Policy Committee's neglect of broad money. An alternative way to operate monetary policy is urgently needed. A significantly improved monetary policy outcome could be achieved by shifting from trying to steer the economy using interest rates and quantitative easing or quantitative tightening to reliance on the relative stability of income velocity (the ratio of nominal GDP to broad money) as a means of managing aggregate demand.     

Monetary policy for rationally inattentive economies with staggered price setting

The paper examines the optimal monetary policy when firms are constrained by information processing capability and infrequent price adjustments. Firms' information processing limit gives rise to imperfect knowledge about macroeconomic aggregates and endogenous information learning contingent on the monetary policy. Staggered price setting introduces the observed price duration and additional policy tradeoffs resulting from the interactions between nominal rigidities and imperfect information processing. The integrated model implies an optimal policy that commits to complete price stabilization in response to natural rate shocks but not in response to markup shocks. In the presence of markup shocks, it is optimal for the central bank to focus on price stabilization in the initial periods following markup shocks and shifts the emphasis to output gap stabilization later. Moreover, larger information capacity, stronger complementarities and more persistent shocks require more aggressive price stabilization in the short-run.     

Optimal money supply in models with endogenous discount factor

This paper studies the Friedman rule for the optimal quantity of money in money in the utility (MIU) and cash–credit models while considering two specifications for the endogenous discount factor. In the first specification, the discount factor depends directly on the utility level. In the second, the discount factor depends on every component of the utility function. We show that under the former specification the Friedman rule is the optimal policy. Under the latter, however, while the Friedman rule is optimal for the MIU model, it is not optimal for the cash–credit model.     

Can money matter for interest rate policy?

In this paper it is shown that money can matter for macroeconomic stability under interest rate policy when transactions frictions are non-negligible. We develop a sticky price model with a shopping time function, which induces the marginal utility of consumption to depend on the (predetermined) stock of money held at the beginning of the period. Equilibrium stability and uniqueness are then ensured by a passive interest rate policy, whereas activeness is associated with an explosive equilibrium. By reacting to changes in beginning-of-period real balances, the central bank can restore stability. Interest rates further depend on lagged real balances even if the central bank acts in an entirely forward-looking way, as under discretionary optimization. If the model is revised such that end-of-period money provides transaction services, money can in principle be neglected for a stabilizing interest rate policy. Discretionary monetary policy is, however, likely to be associated with equilibrium indeterminacy, which can be avoided if interest rates are set contingent on beginning-of-period real balances.     

Price and interest rate dynamics induced by multiperiod contracts

This paper suggests a mechanism by which nominal price rigidities can create a transmission mechanism for monetary shocks through relative price distortions in an economy with both spot and contract markets. The globally unique equilibrium time path of interest rates and prices following an impulse shock to the money supply is characterized. The model predicts that prices and interest rates cycle around the new steady state, with real interest rates initially falling and prices overshooting in the case of a positive shock. The volatility of spot prices and interest rates exceeds that of contract prices.     

Interest rate risk in an emerging economy

The sharp decrease in inflation over the last decade—from 26% in 1990 to 4% in 2001—led the Central Bank of Chile to set its monetary policy interest rate in nominal terms since August 2001. This paper analyzes the effect of nominalization on the behavior of nominal, inflation-linked, and real interest rates, and its subsequent effects on the financial market. We find that nominalization has made nominal interest rates less volatile, while the opposite holds for inflation-linked interest rates. The effect on real interest rates is less unambiguous, but nominalization appears to have increased the cost of borrowing.     

Monetary policy with interest on reserves

I analyze monetary policy with interest on reserves and a large balance sheet. I show that conventional theories do not determine inflation in this regime, so I base the analysis on the fiscal theory of the price level. I find that monetary policy can peg the nominal rate, and determine expected inflation. With sticky prices, monetary policy can also affect real interest rates and output, though higher interest rates raise output and then inflation. The conventional sign requires a coordinated fiscal–monetary policy contraction. I show how conventional new-Keynesian models also imply strong monetary–fiscal policy coordination to obtain the usual signs. I address theoretical controversies. A concluding section places our current regime in a broader historical context, and opines on how optimal fiscal and monetary policy will evolve in the new regime.     

国际短期资本流动对货币政策有效性的影响分析——基于VAR模型和脉冲响应函数的研究

采用VAR模型和冲脉效应函数实证分析国际短期资本流动对货币政策有效性的影响分析,结果显示：货币供给量、利率和国际短期资本流动之间具有长期稳定的均衡关系;利率变动和货币供给之间反向变动;国际短期资本流动对货币政策有效性的影响已经显现,然而国际短期资本流动带来的货币供应量的上升被国家货币政策的调控所冲销,而且冲销力度过大;由于我国对资本流动进行管制,因此隐蔽性资本流动对货币政策效果目标的影响不明显;进出我国的国际短期资本的套利动机虽然不显著,但是国际短期资本流动和利率的关联性已经很强。最后,以实证结果为依据,提出相应对策建议。     

Fear of floating or monetary policy as usual? A structural analysis of Mexico's monetary policy

This paper uses Bayesian methods to estimate a small open economy dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model for the period in Mexico after the 1994 crisis. I consider a Taylor rule as the expression of the evolution of monetary policy to gauge its response to the exchange rate in the post-crisis period. The estimation results favor a consistent response of the nominal interest rate to the short-run nominal exchange rate after 1994. Although fear of floating is present, Mexico's monetary policy has taken steps toward a credible free-floating exchange rate that targets inflation.     

增补预防性储蓄的托宾-索洛模型

非预期的预防性储蓄通过资产替代产生稳态名义货币增长率(或稳态通货膨胀率)对稳态人均资本(或稳态人均产出)的非线性门槛效应。门槛的临界值是非预期预防性储蓄与实际货币增加量比率的递减函数。非线性机制取决于非预期预防性储蓄与实际货币增加量比率和人均实际货币余额-人均资本比率与通货膨胀率、人均资本边际产出的相关性。     

A quantitative analysis of optimal sustainable monetary policies

This study examines the quantitative properties of optimal sustainable monetary policies using a monetary model with a stabilization bias. As in Kurozumi (2008), the optimal sustainable policy is a strategy considered in the absence of commitment technologies; however it is implemented following an optimal quasi-sustainable policy derived by assuming that the commitment technologies are present. This study finds that solving for the policy function of the optimal quasi-sustainable policy yields a result basically identical to the Ramsey-optimal commitment policy under a set of parameters commonly used in the literature. The simulation shows two further results: policymakers have incentive to deviate from the Ramsey-optimal commitment policy when the lagged output gap is large and the optimal quasi-sustainable policy endogenously diminishes the steadfastness of policymakers׳ commitment.