The government's revenue from money creation and the inflationary effects of a decline in the rate of growth of G.N.P.

This paper studies the inflationary consequences of an exogenous decline in the rate of growth of G.N.P. The Government's insistance on keeping its revenue from money creation unaffected results in a compensating increase in the inflation tax, due to the loss of revenue stemming from the decline in growth. It is shown that the magnitude of the necessary compensating increase in the rate of inflation depends crucially on the specification of the demand for money. Based on a Cagan type demand for money, we present the inflationary consequences of a decline in the rate of growth for Israel, six O.E.C.D. countries, and Argentina.     

Foreign Demand for Domestic Currency and the Optimal Rate of Inflation

We characterize the Ramsey optimal rate of inflation in a model with a foreign demand for domestic currency. In the absence of such demand, the model implies that the Friedman rule—deflation at the real rate of interest—is optimal. We show analytically that in the presence of a foreign demand for domestic currency, this result breaks down. Calibrated versions of the model deliver optimal annual rates of inflation between 2% and 10%. The domestically benevolent government imposes an inflation tax to extract resources from the rest of the world in the form of seignorage revenue.     

A quantitative analysis of inflation as a tax on the underground economy

Inflation rates are more dispersed and are persistently higher in developing countries. This paper quantifies the importance of the public-finance motive for inflation in the presence of a tax-evading sector, the underground economy. The approach is motivated by the observation that the underground economy is especially large in poor countries. The analysis builds on a general equilibrium monetary model with two production sectors, where income in one of the sectors cannot be taxed. A benevolent government finances its budget using an optimal combination of the income tax rate and the inflation rate. The model is first calibrated to the U.S. economy and is then used for a cross-country simulation. The resulting relationships between the size of an underground economy, inflation rate, income tax rate and the share of seigniorage in the government revenue rationalize the cross-country data quantitatively well.     

Some dynamic theory of macroeconomic policy effects on income and prices under the government budget restraint

Consider a macroeconomic model with constant capacity, an inflation adjustment process depending on excess demand, a government budget restraint, and plausible assumptions. Steady-state equilibrium paths have constant (possibly zero) inflation rates. Stability is assured if the endogenous policy variable is money, government purchase, or the tax rate; if it is government debt instability is assured (contrary to Blinder-Solow). Exogenous increases in money or government purchases raise prices in the short and long run. An open market purchase raises prices in the short run, but if money is endogenous it reduces money and prices in the long run.     

A model of money with multilateral matching

We develop a model of decentralized monetary exchange to examine the distributional effects of inflation across heterogeneous agents. The agents have private information about their productivity, preferences, or money holdings. Matching is multilateral and each seller is visited by a stochastic number of buyers. The good is allocated according to a second-price auction in money. In equilibrium, homogeneous buyers hold different amounts of money leading to price dispersion. We find the closed-form solution for the distribution of money holdings. Entry of sellers is suboptimal except at the Friedman rule. Inflation acts as a regressive tax.     

The optimal rate of inflation revisited

Inflation viewed as a tax on cash balances is investigated using the optimal commodity tax framework. The optimal inflation rate is shown to depend on the effect of changes in the rate of inflation on quantity demanded of ‘costly-to-produce’ goods. Even when other goods are taxed, it is not always optimal to have a positive tax on money, as Phelps and others have claimed. A zero tax or even a rate of deflation greater than the pre-tax rate of interest may be optimal.     

Federal reserve policy viewed through a money supply lens

Federal Reserve nonborrowed reserve supply systematically responded to changes in inflation and in the output gap over the period 1969-2000. While the feedback from output gap is always negative, the response of money supply to changes in inflation varies considerably across time. Nonborrowed reserves decreased with inflation in the post-1979 period and increased in the pre-1979 period. Applying a standard macro-model, the estimated reaction functions are shown to ensure equilibrium determinacy. Viewed through the money supply lens, Federal Reserve policy substantially changed over time, but has never allowed for endogenous fluctuations, which contrasts conclusions drawn from federal funds rate analyses.     

Taxation and the Taylor principle

A nominal tax system is added to a sticky-price monetary business cycle model. When nominal interest income is taxed, the coefficient on inflation in a Taylor-type monetary policy rule must be significantly larger than one in order for the model economy to have a determinate rational-expectations equilibrium. When effective tax rates are raised by inflation, the stability of the economy's equilibrium can be adversely affected. Finally, when depreciation is treated as a charge against taxable income, an even larger weight on inflation is required in the Taylor rule in order to obtain a determinate and stable equilibrium.     

After the death of inflation: will fiscal drag survive?

Declining inflation rates might have negative consequences for tax revenues. Phenomena such as the inflationary bracket creep in a progressive income tax system do not work any longer. With this background, the paper analyses the extent of fiscal drag for OECD countries since 1965. Some consideration of the role of money illusion and indexation in this context lays the theoretical base. A framework is presented that allows for the classification of fiscal structures with regard to the type of fiscal drag. The subsequent econometric panel analysis is performed for total and disaggregated government revenues. The results back theoretical considerations of inflation's impact on different kinds of taxes, which tends to be positive for individual income taxes and social security contributions and is negative for corporate income taxation. The paper concludes that both declining inflation and changing tax structures limit the potential for future fiscal drag.     

Wealth Distribution, Inflation Tax, and Societal Benefits of Illiquid Bonds

Illiquid nominal government bonds are shown to have two opposing effects on welfare. First, the relatively poor choose to top-up money balances for future consumption by purchasing nominal bonds at a discount. The wealth distribution becomes more centered with a smaller consumption deviation from the first best. Second, the higher inflation tax on monetary wealth to finance interest payments makes money less valuable, so that the quantity of output produced in exchange for money decreases. The trade-off between the welfare-enhancing effect on wealth distribution and the distortionary effect on output implies the socially optimal discount rate and liquidity.     

Fiscal Requirements for Dynamic and Real Determinacies in Economies with Private Provision of Liquidity: A Monetarist Assessment

We study the impact of fiscal policies on the inherent links between inflation, unemployment, and asset prices in an environment where firms provide liquidity and the central bank follows a constant money growth rate rule. Firms, other than hiring workers, also supply private assets that are not only useful as a store of value but also as collateral. When firms are not taxed and public debt is scarce, the economy is non-Ricardian so that real indeterminacies can be observed. Moreover, labor market characteristics do not affect the demand for government liabilities. However, when agents face public and private asset scarcity, labor market conditions then impact asset prices and inflation. We further show that irrespective of the type of asset scarcity agents face, when firms are taxed non-ad valorem, not only the level of tax revenues but also its composition matter for real allocations. Moreover, we show that labor market conditions directly affect the dynamics of all government liabilities and inflation.     

Taxes and the Fisher Effect: A Clarifying Analysis

Supply and demand functions for loanable funds are postulated for a no-inflation economy and equilibrium levels of saving, investment, and the interest rate are specified. Certainty and nondepreciating assets are assumed. An exogenous inflation rate is imposed upon this same economy and new equilibrium values for these same variables are established. The analysis is performed twice. The first time, a Modigliani-Miller [17] tax structure is assumed while the second analysis assumes a Miller-Scholes [15] tax structure. In both cases, inflation causes the nominal rate to increase by more than the inflation rate. The analysis is repeated assuming that investments live for one period and are then written off against taxable income at historical cost. In both tax structures, the level of saving and investment is a decreasing function of the inflation rate.     

Fiscal Consequences of Paying Interest on Reserves

We review the role of the central bank's balance sheet in a textbook monetary model and explore what changes if the central bank is allowed to pay interest on its liabilities. When the central bank (CB) cannot pay interest, away from the zero lower bound its (real) balance sheet is limited by the demand for money. Furthermore, if securities are not marked to market and the central bank holds its bonds to maturity, it is impossible for the CB to make losses, and it always obtains profits from being a monopoly provider of money. When the option of paying interest on liabilities is allowed, the limit on the CB's balance sheet is lifted. In this case, the CB is free to take on interest‐rate risk – for example, by buying long‐term securities and financing those purchases with short‐term debt that pays the market interest rate. This is a risky enterprise that can lead to additional profits but also to losses. To the extent that losses exceed the profits of the monopoly operations, the CB faces two options: either it is recapitalised by Treasury or it increases its monopoly profits by raising the inflation tax.     

The effects of relative price changes on the household's demand for money

In examining the economic response to changes in the rate of inflation, models of the demand for money have traditionally assumed that all prices change equiproportionately. This paper alternatively examines the effect on the demand for money of relative price changes. The analysis develops a choice theoretic framework of household behavior by combining a utility maximization framework with the inventory approach to the transactions demand for money. A significant result of the analysis is that the net effect of a change in relative prices on the household's money holding depends on the purchase frequencies and price elasticities of the relevant commodities.     

Stock returns and inflation: The role of the monetary sector

This paper hypothesizes that the relation between stock returns and inflation is caused by the equilibrium process in the monetary sector. More importantly, these relations vary over time in a systematic manner depending on the influence of money demand and supply factors. Post-war evidence from the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and Germany indicates that the negative stock return-inflation relations are caused by money demand and counter-cyclical money supply effects. On the other hand, pro-cyclical movements in money, inflation, and stock prices during the 1930's lead to relations which are either positive or insignificant.     

The Friedman rule: Old and new

In overlapping generations models, money growth creates intergenerational wealth effects and leads to the breakdown of the Friedman rule; the rule can be restored via lump-sum tax and transfers that neutralize these wealth transfers. Additionally, and in contrast to money-in-the-utility-function models, the Friedman rule is not the unique first-best solution in cash-in-advance-constraint models of money: a continuum of combinations of money growth rates and consumption taxes implement the first-best allocation. This paper traces through the intellectual origins of the first (old) result, which was recently restated in Bhattacharya, et al. [2005. Monetary policy, fiscal policy, and the inflation tax: equivalence results. Macroeconomic Dynamics 7, 647-669.] and formally demonstrates the second (new) result.     

Government revenue from money creation with government and private money

For a stationary state, we show that if the government is as efficient as a competitive banking industry in producing money, then the substitution of private for government money does not alter the revenue from money creation or the present value maximizing holding cost of money. If households and non-banking firms hold both government and private money, then maximum present value requires that the reserve ratio maximize the monetary base and that the base nominal interest elasticity equal minus one. With perfect foresight, zero money balances and zero revenue from money creation is the only time consistent revenue maximizing solution.     

Money and the Welfare Cost of Inflation in an R&D Growth Model

This study analyzes the effects of inflation on R&D and innovation‐driven growth. In the theoretical section, we incorporate money demand into a quality‐ladder model with elastic labor supply and derive the following result. If the elasticity of substitution between consumption and the real money balance is less (greater) than unity, then R&D and the growth rate of output would be decreasing (increasing) in the growth rate of money supply. Quantitatively, decreasing inflation in the U.S. to achieve price stability improves social welfare, and the welfare gain is equivalent to at least 0.5% of annual consumption. In the empirical section, we use cross‐country data to establish a negative and statistically significant relationship between inflation and R&D.     

The Phillips curve under state-dependent pricing

We derive a Phillips curve equation from the dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model with state-dependent pricing developed by Dotsey et al. [1999. State-dependent pricing and the general equilibrium dynamics of money and output. Quarterly Journal of Economics 114, 655-690]. This state-dependent Phillips curve encompasses the new Keynesian Phillips curve (NKPC) based on Calvo-type price setting as a special case. We analyze the effect of the state-dependent terms (that is, the variations in the distributions of price vintages) on inflation persistence, and we examine whether the hybrid NKPC (that is, the NKPC extended by a lagged inflation term) can adequately describe inflation dynamics generated in a calibrated state-dependent pricing economy.     

开放经济条件下货币需求的非对称特征

本文使用1994-2010年的非平稳季度数据,应用门限调整方法研究了开放经济条件下的货币需求,发现货币需求与收入、汇率、利率及通货膨胀之间存在协整关系,M1和M2短期需求函数存在门限调整。门限误差修正模型表明,M1、M2短期需求函数在长期均衡偏离低于门限值时能回复到长期均衡,在长期均衡偏离高于门限值时不稳定;收入、通货膨胀及汇率影响M1和M2的短期需求函数,但利率只影响M1的短期需求函数,不影响M2的短期需求函数。大多数时候货币需求能自我修正,但目前货币需求处于门限以上,限制了以货币供应量为中介目标的货币政策调控效果。