WHAT CAN WE LEARN FROM THE IMPLEMENTATION OF MONETARY AND MACROPRUDENTIAL POLICIES: A SYSTEMATIC LITERATURE REVIEW

The emergence of macroprudential policies, implemented by central banks as a means of promoting financial stability, has raised many questions regarding the interaction between monetary and macroprudential policies. Given the limited number of studies available, this paper sheds light on this issue by providing a critical and systematic review of the literature. To this end, we divide the theoretical and empirical studies into two broad channels of borrowers – consisting of the cost of funds and the collateral constraint – and financial intermediaries – consisting of risk‐taking and payment systems. In spite of the existing ambiguity surrounding coordination issues between monetary and macroprudential policies, it is argued that monetary policy alone is not sufficient to maintain macroeconomic and financial stability. Hence, macroprudential policies are needed to supplement monetary. In addition, we find that the role of the exchange rate is critical in the implementation of monetary and macroprudential policies in emerging markets, while volatile capital flows pose another challenge. In so far as how the arrangement of monetary and macroprudential policies varies across countries, key theoretical and policy implications have been identified.     

Fiscal and monetary policies in complex evolving economies

What is the most appropriate combination of fiscal and monetary policies in economies subject to banking crises and deep recessions? We study this issue using an agent-based model that is able to reproduce a wide array of macro- and micro-empirical regularities. Simulation results suggest that policy mixes associating unconstrained, counter-cyclical fiscal policy and monetary policy targeting employment is required to stabilise the economy. We also show that “discipline-guided” fiscal rules can be self-defeating, as they depress the economy without improving public finances. Finally, we find that the effects of monetary and fiscal policies become sharper as the level of income inequality increases.     

The role of financial intermediaries in monetary policy transmission

The recent financial crisis has stimulated theoretical and empirical research on the propagation mechanisms underlying business cycles, in particular on the role of financial frictions. Many issues concerning the interactions between banking and monetary policy forced policy makers to redefine economic policies, and motivated macroeconomists to focus on the implications of financial intermediation constraints for asset price fluctuations, the behavior of non-financial firms, households, governments and in turn for real macroeconomic performance. This paper surveys research on the role of financial intermediaries and financial frictions in the transmission of monetary policy and discusses how to design both the new banking regulatory and supervisory structures and monetary policy in order to stabilize the economy. It also serves as an introduction to this special issue.     

Design limits and dynamic policy analysis

This paper characterizes the frequency domain properties of feedback control rules in linear systems in order to better understand how different policies affect outcomes frequency by frequency. We are especially concerned in understanding how reductions of variance at some frequencies induce increases in variance at others. Tradeoffs of this type are known in the control literature as design limits. Design limits are important in understanding the full range of effects of macroeconomic stabilization policies. We extend existing results to account for discrete time bivariate systems with rational expectations. Application is made to the evaluation of monetary policy rules.     

货币政策和财政政策、市场情绪与大类资产收益——基于隐性知识传播视角的解读

以货币政策和财政政策为主的宏观经济政策松紧程度不仅对大类资产收益产生直接效应,还会通过市场情绪对大类资产收益产生间接效应。通过构建基于隐性知识传播的概念模型,探究了宏观经济政策、市场情绪和大类资产收益之间的内在逻辑关系,并提出三个研究假说：宏观经济政策紧缩程度的提高会降低大类资产收益;宏观经济政策紧缩程度的提高会促进市场情绪高涨;宏观经济政策紧缩程度的提高会通过市场情绪高涨,进一步降低大类资产收益。在采用多种计量检验方法并进行稳健性检验后,检验结果都能很好地验证所提出的三个研究假说,研究结论能为我国政府制定相关宏观经济政策提供决策参考。     

基于市场利率波动测度的货币政策操作风险研究

在货币政策操作过程中,中央银行对宏观经济形势的认识偏差,货币政策工具及政策调控时机的选择不当,以及政策信息的披露不及时等,都有可能误导公众预期,增加市场不确定性,从而引致货币政策操作风险。文章通过利用中国货币市场上同业拆借和债券回购的利率数据进行实证,结果表明,中央银行政策操作透明度不高以及对宏观经济形势进行判断的前瞻性不足,是引致我国货币政策操作风险的重要原因。     

税收规避能够提升企业价值吗？——基于货币政策视角的研究

基于我国特殊制度环境,本文考察了不同货币政策下企业税收规避对其价值的影响机理。研究发现：不同的外部经济政策环境会改变企业税收规避影响企业价值的作用途径。具体而言,货币政策宽松时期,投资者将企业税收规避行为视为存在代理问题的信号,由此对企业价值给予较低评价;货币政策紧缩期,合理的税收规避行为可作为一种替代性的内源融资方式缓解企业潜在的融资约束问题,并且投资者将实际税负的降低解读为一种企业价值增加的信号;进一步的分析表明货币政策通过影响企业融资约束程度进而影响企业税收规避和企业价值的关系。     

危机后发达国家的非传统货币政策研究

次贷危机爆发以后,各国纷纷实行非传统的货币政策来刺激经济。自2009年下半年以来,随着一些国家的经济状况开始恢复,人们开始担心通货膨胀的出现,因此研究非传统货币政策何时退出就成为当前各国宏观经济保持稳定的一个重要任务。发达国家实行非传统货币政策的原因在于传统的货币政策传导机制,即从市场基准利率向短期利率和长期利率的传导受阻。因此非传统货币政策实施的目的在于降低短期利率预期和风险溢价,同时提高通胀预期,降低长期实际利率,最终起到刺激实体经济的作用。文章以美国为例,考察了美国金融指标、通胀指标和宏观经济指标,得出结论:传统的货币政策传导机制的恢复还未得到充分的确认。另外,由于欧洲债务危机的出现给全球经济复苏蒙上阴影,因此全面退出非传统货币政策尚不具备条件。但是在全球化时代,寻求大国之间退出策略的合作和协调是十分必要的。     

Do Good Institutions Promote Countercyclical Macroeconomic Policies?

The literature has argued that developing countries are unable to adopt countercyclical monetary and fiscal policies due to financial imperfections and unfavourable political‐economy conditions. Using a world sample of up to 112 industrial and developing countries for 1984–2008, we find that the level of institutional quality plays a key role in countries’ ability and willingness to implement countercyclical macroeconomic policies. Countries with strong (weak) institutions adopt countercyclical (procyclical) macroeconomic policies, reflected in extended monetary policy and fiscal policy rules. The threshold levels of institutional quality at which policies are acyclical are found to be similar for monetary and fiscal policy.     

The Eurozone and financial integration: the employment relations issues

Together the macroeconomic and financial attributes of monetary union are changing the rules governing the European economy. This paper assesses the consequences of these changes for employment relations in member states. The analysis focuses on three matters in particular. First, how labour market actors are responding to the fact that macroeconomic policies are not only out of their own control but may therefore fail to correspond to the needs of particular countries. Second, how employment relations are adapting to the new microeconomic challenges released by the move towards deeper financial integration inside the EU, which has its main impact on the structures of corporate finance and thus on corporate strategy. Finally the implications of both patterns of change for the EU employment policy are assessed to gauge the impact of monetary union on the European social model.     

Estimation with overidentifying inequality moment conditions

This paper derives limit distributions of empirical likelihood estimators for models in which inequality moment conditions provide overidentifying information. We show that the use of this information leads to a reduction of the asymptotic mean-squared estimation error and propose asymptotically uniformly valid tests and confidence sets for the parameters of interest. While inequality moment conditions arise in many important economic models, we use a dynamic macroeconomic model as a data generating process and illustrate our methods with instrumental variable estimators of monetary policy rules. The results obtained in this paper extend to conventional GMM estimators.     

Political Instability, Uncertainty and Economics

This paper focuses on the relationship between political instability, policy–making and macroeconomic outcomes. The theoretical section explores various models that explain the effect of instability (and political uncertainty) on growth, budget formation, inflation and monetary policy. The empirical section discusses the evidence on the predictions generated by theoretical models. Preliminary to this discussion, however, is the analysis of a few general issues concerning the specification and estimation of econometric models with political variables. Some new results are then produced on the empirical relevance of theories of strategic use of fiscal deficit.     

Macroeconomic and financial stability in a monetary union: The case of Lithuania

In this paper, we study the implications of macroprudential policies in a monetary union for macroeconomic and financial stability. For this purpose, we develop a two-country monetary union new Keynesian general equilibrium model with housing and collateral constraints, to be calibrated for Lithuania and the rest of the euro area. We consider two different scenarios for macroprudential policies: one in which the ECB extends its goals to also include financial stability and a second one in which a national macroprudential authority uses the loan-to-value ratio (LTV) as an instrument. The results show that both rules are effective in making the financial system more stable in both countries, and especially in Lithuania. This is because the financial sector in this country is more sensitive to shocks. We find that an extended Taylor rule is indeed effective in reducing the volatility of credit, but comes with a cost in terms of higher inflation volatility. The simple LTV rule, on the other hand, does not compromise the objective of monetary policy. This reinforces the “Tinbergen principle”, which argues that there should be two different instruments when there are two different policy goals.     

Coordination and non-coordination risks of monetary and macroprudential authorities: A robust welfare analysis

This study compares a central bank’s leaning against the wind approach with a mix of monetary and macroprudential policies under parameter uncertainty in an estimated DSGE model with two financial frictions. We show that uncertainty of the economic environment is an essential constituent in properly designing macroprudential policy. Although coordination between monetary and macroprudential policies minimizes the policymakers’ Bayesian risk, coordination and non-coordination risks threaten the goals of both authorities. The former describes the situation where the authorities partly resign from implementing the monetary policy objectives to stabilize macroprudential risk. The latter is when conducting a non-coordinated macroprudential policy induces higher total Bayesian risk than when only the central bank minimizes the expected total welfare loss. The robust Bayesian macroeconomic rules show that when financial shocks shrink the banks’ or entrepreneurial net worth, a contractionary macroprudential policy should be combined with an expansionary monetary policy. However, if capital adequacy ratio or risk shocks strike the economy, such a conflict in macroeconomics policy instruments disappears, thus synchronizing both policies.     

STABILISATION POLICY,RATIONAL EXPECTATIONS AND PRICE‐LEVEL VERSUS INFLATION TARGETING: A SURVEY

We survey literature comparing inflation targeting (IT) and price‐level targeting (PT) as macroeconomic stabilisation policies. Our focus is on New Keynesian models and areas that have seen significant developments since Ambler's (2009, Price‐level targeting and stabilisation policy: a survey. Journal of Economic Surveys 23(5): 974–997) survey: optimal monetary policy; the zero lower bound; financial frictions and transition costs of adopting a PT regime. Ambler's conclusion that PT improves social welfare in New Keynesian models is fairly robust, but we note an interesting split in the literature: PT consistently outperforms IT in models where policymakers commit to simple Taylor‐type rules, but results in favour of PT when policymakers minimise loss functions are overturned with small deviations from the baseline model. Since the beneficial effects of PT appear to hang on the joint assumption that agents are rational and the economy New Keynesian, we discuss survey and experimental evidence on rational expectations and the applied macro literature on the empirical performance of New Keynesian models. Overall, the evidence is not clear‐cut, but we note that New Keynesian models can pass formal statistical tests against macro data and that models with rational expectations outperform those with behavioural expectations (i.e. heuristics) in direct statistical tests. We therefore argue that policymakers should continue to pay attention to PT.     

Learning about monetary policy rules when the cost-channel matters

We study how monetary policy may affect determinacy and expectational stability (E-stability) of rational expectations equilibrium when the cost channel of monetary policy matters. Focusing on instrumental Taylor-type rules and optimal target rules, we show that standard policies can induce indeterminacy and expectational instability when the cost channel is present. A naïve application of the traditional Taylor principle could be misleading, and expectations-based reaction function under discretion does not always induce determinate and E-stable equilibrium. This result contrasts with the findings of Bullard and Mitra [2002. Learning about monetary policy rules. Journal of Monetary Economics 49, 1105–1129] and Evans and Honkapohja [2003. Expectations and stability problem for optimal monetary policies. Review of Economic Studies 70, 807–824] for the standard new Keynesian model. The ability of the central bank to commit to an optimal policy is an antidote to these problems.     

THE REGIONAL EFFECTS OF MONETARY POLICY: A SURVEY OF THE EMPIRICAL LITERATURE

This survey provides an updated review of the empirical literature on the regional effects of monetary policy in economic activity by means of undertaking a threefold perspective. First, the main methodological dimensions of this literature are examined while pinpointing those modelling or methodological traits that constitute a source of diverging estimates and thereby produce inconclusive evidence. Secondly, the estimates yielded by the literature are summarized by carrying out a cross‐study analysis of the results for each monetary union. By drawing on empirical regularities that are robust across studies, the conclusiveness of the results is assessed, while those monetary unions for which conclusive evidence is still lacking are also identified. Lastly, the sources of regional heterogeneity identified by these studies are reviewed in order to shed some light on the linkage between monetary policy and territorial heterogeneity. As a result of this threefold perspective, this survey delivers overall structured conclusions and updated policy‐relevant lessons. Moreover, various research gaps and emerging topics in the literature are also identified.     

ON THE EFFECTIVENESS OF FISCAL POLICY AS AN INSTRUMENT OF MACROECONOMIC POLICY

This paper demonstrates that fiscal policy is an effective and essential instrument of stabilisation macroeconomic policy. This is particularly so if it is co-ordinated with monetary policy, especially in the current worldwide economic situation.     

EQUALITY OF OPPORTUNITY: POLICY AND MEASUREMENT PARADIGMS

Abstract Equality of opportunity is a widely accepted principle of distributive justice and it is the leading idea of most political platforms in several countries. According to this principle, a society might institute policies that secure an equal distribution of the means to reach a valuable outcome among its members. Once the set of opportunities have been equalized, which particular opportunity, the individual chooses from those open to her, is outside the scope of justice. Ex ante inequalities, and only those inequalities, should be eliminated or compensated for by public intervention. The recent literature on the opportunity egalitarianism often merges these questions introducing two different economic issues. On one side the design of a public policy intended to implement the equality of opportunity view and on the other side the problem of measuring the degree of opportunity inequality in a society. We describe the basic setting and assumptions of some different approaches derived by Roemer’s algorithm for public policy and then we discuss some theoretical and empirical studies to separate and test alternative paradigms on the measurement of inequality of opportunity. Accordingly, an extended critique on the causality issue on policies and measurements is taken into account.