Financial frictions and optimal stabilization policy in a monetary union

Financial frictions differ across countries and thus cause international differences in the transmission of shocks. This paper shows how the optimal mix of monetary and fiscal policy depends on these country-specific financial frictions. To this end, we build a two-country DSGE-model of a monetary union. Financial frictions are captured by the cost channel approach. We show that the traditional solution to the assignment problem – the common central bank stabilizes the inflation rate at the union level and the national fiscal authorities stabilize the national economies – does not hold in a world with financial frictions. The cost channel decreases the efficiency of monetary policy and increases the need for fiscal stabilization even at the union level. Moreover, the more heterogeneous the union, the more important is fiscal policy in stabilizing shocks. Finally, we evaluate the scenarios in terms of welfare of the representative household.     

Optimal monetary–fiscal policy in the euro area liquidity crisis

We build an euro-area level DSGE model featuring a liquidity shock in the sovereign bonds market to simulate the strong contraction in economic activity observed during the 2008–2009 crisis. In the model, a sudden deterioration of the liquidity property of sovereign bonds is associated with deep recession and deflation. Against this background we characterize optimal monetary and fiscal policy with full commitment. We find that the optimal policy contains three features: (i) the policy rate is lowered until hitting the zero lower bound (ZLB) and then is kept at the ZLB for more periods; (ii) a prolonged central bank’s balance-sheet expansion aimed at restoring the liquidity deteriorated; (iii) a counter-cyclical fiscal stimulus which offsets, to a large extent, the fall in private spending caused by the liquidity shock. Policy regimes involving (i), but not (ii) and (iii), are quite weak in stabilizing output gap and inflation. Monetary policy regimes such as full inflation-targeting or nominal GDP targeting perform remarkably well insofar as they are complemented with an optimally-implemented counter-cyclical fiscal policy. Our results tend to favour the view that, in case of recession, an euro-wide coordinated fiscal policy should supplement the role of the ECB in achieving its primary objective.     

OPTIMAL CONTRACTS FOR CENTRAL BANKERS AND PUBLIC DEBT POLICY*

We consider how the second‐best allocation corresponding to an optimal rule under the policy commitment of a central bank and a fiscal authority with a consolidated government budget constraint can be achieved, even though these authorities are unable to commit themselves to their optimal policies and ignore the strategic interaction between their policies. Our results show that the best practical institutional arrangement is to have an instrument‐independent central bank that controls the money supply to determine the rate of inflation and commits itself to an inflation target that depends on fiscal variables.     

Discretionary policy in a monetary union with sovereign debt

This paper examines the interactions between multiple national fiscal policymakers and a single monetary policy maker in response to shocks to government debt in some or all of the countries of a monetary union. We assume that national governments respond to excess debt in an optimal manner, but that they do not have access to a commitment technology. This implies that national fiscal policy gradually reduces debt: the lack of a commitment technology precludes a random walk in steady-state debt, but the need to maintain national competitiveness avoids excessively rapid debt reduction. If the central bank can commit, it adjusts its policies only slightly in response to higher debt, allowing national fiscal policy to undertake most of the adjustment. However, if it cannot commit, then optimal monetary policy involves using interest rates to rapidly reduce debt, with significant welfare costs. We show that in these circumstances the central bank would do better to ignore national fiscal policies in formulating its policy.     

Independence Before Conservatism: Transparency, Politics and Central Bank Design

Abstract. The problem of monetary policy delegation is formulated as a two‐stage game between the government and the central bank. In the first stage the government chooses the institutional design of the central bank. Monetary and fiscal policy are implemented in the second stage. When fiscal policy is taken into account, there is a continuum of combinations of central bank independence and conservatism that produce optimal outcomes. This indeterminacy is resolved by appealing to practical considerations. In particular, it is argued that full central bank independence facilitates the greatest degree of policy transparency and political coherence.     

Fiscal Transfers in a Monetary Union with Exit Option

It is widely debated whether a monetary union has to be accompanied by a fiscal transfer scheme to accommodate asymmetric shocks. We build a model of a monetary union with a central bank and two heterogeneous countries that are linked by a fiscal transfer scheme with repercussions on monetary policy. A central bank aiming at securing the existence of a monetary union in the presence of asymmetric shocks has to compensate single countries for the tax distortions arising from fiscal transfers. Monetary policy may become more expansionary or restrictive depending on asymmetries between member countries' inflation aversion and exit costs.     

Central bank independence,fiscal deficits and currency union: Lessons from Africa

Can central bank independence (CBI) help to reduce fiscal balances? In this paper, we answer this question using novel measures of CBI based on the turnover rate of central bank governors (TOR) and the Garriga measure of legal independence for 30 African countries for the period 1990–2017. Our novel measures of CBI capture the degree of alliance between the fiscal authority and the monetary authority which can potentially lead to debt monetization and higher fiscal balances. Thus, we classify central bank governor changes into ally changes or non-ally changes; in addition to that, we decompose our full sample into CFA zone countries and non-CFA zone countries to capture the effect of currency union membership. Our results show that for CFA zone countries, central bank autonomy, when proxied by the turnover rate of central bank governors, is associated with a decrease in fiscal balances and replacing a central banker with a non-ally, is negatively and significantly associated with fiscal balances.     

CENTRAL BANK INDEPENDENCE AND THE MONETARY INSTRUMENT PROBLEM

We study the monetary instrument problem in a dynamic noncooperative game between separate, discretionary, fiscal and monetary policy makers. We show that monetary instruments are equivalent only if the policy makers' objectives are perfectly aligned; otherwise an instrument problem exists. When the central bank is benevolent while the fiscal authority is short‐sighted relative to the private sector, excessive public spending and debt emerge under a money growth policy but not under an interest rate policy. Despite this property, the interest rate is not necessarily the optimal instrument.     

United we stand: on the macroeconomics of a Fiscal union

In this paper, we apply dynamic tracking games to macroeconomic policy making in a monetary union. We use a small stylized nonlinear two-country macroeconomic model of a monetary union for analyzing the interactions between two fiscal (governments: “core” and “periphery”) and one monetary (central bank) policy makers, assuming different objective functions of these decision makers. Using the OPTGAME algorithm, we calculate numerical solutions for cooperative (Pareto optimal) and non-cooperative games (feedback Nash). We show how the policy makers react to adverse demand shocks. We investigate the consequences of three scenarios: decentralized fiscal policies controlled by independent governments (the present situation), centralized fiscal policy (a fiscal union) with an independent central bank (pure fiscal union), and a fully centralized monetary and fiscal union. For the latter two scenarios, we demonstrate the importance of different assumptions about the joint objective function corresponding to different weights for the two governments in the design of the common fiscal policy. We show that a fiscal union with weights corresponding to the number of states in each of the blocs gives better results than non-cooperative policy making. When one bloc dominates the fiscal union, decentralized policies yield lower overall losses than the pure fiscal union and the monetary and fiscal union.     

Budget uncertainty in a monetary union

Governments in a monetary union fear spending disturbances. We distinguish them according to their ability to hedge against these disturbances and assume that they derive their optimal fiscal decisions by using a robust control approach. Results show that governments being highly vulnerable to spending disturbances set excessive tax rates, thereby exacerbating the fiscal pressure detrimental to output and obliging the central bank to conduct an expansionary monetary policy. Countries whose governments have higher ability to hedge against spending disturbances then suffer from the inflationary consequences of this monetary policy.     

On the Institutional Design of the European Monetary Union: Conservatism, Stability Pact and Economic Shocks

The aim of this paper is to design the optimal institutional arrangement for a monetary union. Using a two-country rational expectations model, the study analyses how the conservatism of the area-wide central bank and the penalty system for fiscal deviation (Stability and Growth Pact) should be designed with respect to different economic shocks. The optimal institutional arrangement is also dependent on who is the 'leader' of the policy game. When national governments move first, the independent area-wide central bank can exercise greater discipline over national fiscal policies, making the Stability Pact unnecessary.
(J.E.L.: E58, E63, F42).     

Central bank communication on fiscal policy

The issue of central bank communication on fiscal policy has so far received very little attention in the literature. This article aims to shed light on the determinants of central bank communication on fiscal policy by analysing the intensity of central banks’ fiscal communication for five central banks (the Federal Reserve, the ECB, the Bank of Japan, the Bank of England and the Swedish Riksbank) over the period 1999–2011. The ECB communicates intensively on fiscal policies, in a normative way. The other central banks emphasise foreign fiscal developments, fiscal policy as input to forecasts, or the use of government debt instruments in monetary policy operations. The empirical analysis indicates that the financial crisis has overall increased the intensity of central bank communication on fiscal policy. The evolution of the government deficit ratio is a driver of the intensity of fiscal communication in the euro area, the US and Japan, and for Sweden since the start of the crisis, while in the UK its intensity is related to government debt developments as of the start of the crisis.     

INTERACTION BETWEEN MONETARY AND FISCAL AUTHORITIES UNDER INCOMPLETE INFORMATION

This paper analyzes the interaction between monetary and fiscal authorities under incomplete information. The inflation goal of the central bank is assumed to be unknown to the fiscal authority and the public. The central bank signals the goal by choosing the first‐period monetary policy before the fiscal authority joins the policy‐making game. If the central bank would like the fiscal authority and the public to believe that it is wet (dry), the central bank would distort the money supply upward (downward) in order to reveal its actual type.     

Monetary policy,fiscal policy and cross signal jamming

This paper considers the issue of rule versus discretion when the central bank and the government share private information but have different preferences over inflation and output. We demonstrate that if the monetary policy is rule-based, Intuitive Criterion selects the unique separating equilibrium in which the central bank signals a low supply shock by a low interest rate. Interestingly, discretion may be better than the rule for the central bank, contrary to the case of complete information. Also, we examine the effect of information asymmetry on the monetary and fiscal policy mix. We show that cross signal jamming whereby the monetary authority and the fiscal authority successfully jams an unfavorable signal of each other does not occur in equilibrium.     

The macroeconomics of social pacts

In this paper we analyze macroeconomic interactions between trade unions, the central bank and the fiscal policymaker. We explicitly model unions’ concern for public expenditure, paving the way for an analysis of the potential gains from cooperation between the fiscal policymaker and the unions, i.e. the so-called corporatist or social pacts that have characterized economic policies in a number of European countries in the last few decades. We also highlight the profoundly different incentives generated by institutional arrangements such as the Maastricht criteria and the Stability and Growth Pact. The former has unambiguously induced more efficient outcomes; the latter is likely to backfire!     

Determinants of the Eurosystem's Central Banks Provisions

Central bank provisions may be used as a measure of the perceived risk of the balance sheet composition by a central bank. We identify three possible sources that may change the size of the provisions. These are: The length of the balance sheet, the central bank revenues, and measures of fiscal stress. Using data of the 11 founding members of the Eurosystem for the years 1999–2015, we are able to test each of the three determinants. We find that provisions are increased with the size of the balance sheet especially in the recent financial crisis. Moreover, provisions are increased at the cost of lower central bank revenues. While this holds for the pre‐crisis period this relationship seems to be less pronounced in the crisis period probably because of the more active collateral policy. Finally, central banks do not tend to lower provisions because of fiscal tensions. This is even more true in the crisis period.     

Understanding policy in the great recession: Some unpleasant fiscal arithmetic

I use the valuation equation of government debt to understand fiscal and monetary policy in and following the great recession of 2008–2009. I also examine policy alternatives to avoid deflation, and how fiscal pressures might lead to inflation. I conclude that the central bank may be almost powerless to avoid deflation or inflation; that an eventual fiscal inflation can come well before large deficits or monetization are realized, and that it is likely to come with stagnation rather than a boom.     

Monetary and fiscal policy interaction and government debt stabilization

Employing differential games, this paper models the strategic interaction between monetary authorities who control monetization and fiscal authorities who control primary fiscal deficits. We analytically compute and interpret the cooperative and noncooperative Nash open-loop equilibria. Furthermore, we reinterpret unpleasant monetarist arithmetic and analyze the impact of a more conservative central bank. Finally, to explore the consequences of a more independent central bank, we analyze Stackelberg open-loop equilibria.     

“Core” and “Periphery” in a Monetary Union: A Macroeconomic Policy Game

We develop a dynamic game model of a two-country monetary union to study strategic interactions between macroeconomic policy makers, namely the central bank and governments. In this union, the governments of participating countries pursue national goals when deciding on fiscal policies, whereas the common central bank’s monetary policy aims at union-wide objective variables. The union considered is asymmetric, consisting of a core, with lower initial public debt, and a periphery, with higher initial public debt. For a symmetric demand shock, we derive numerical solutions of the dynamic game between the governments and the central bank using the OPTGAME algorithm. We show that mildly active cooperative countercyclical policies dominate noncooperative solutions and a scenario of no policy intervention. Optimal policies call for a brief expansionary action to bolster the effects on output and a return to a small fiscal primary surplus as soon as the crisis is over until the targeted level of public debt is reached.     

Stabilization policy in a Keynes–Goodwin model with debt accumulation

In this paper, we investigate the macroeconomic impact of government's stabilization policy by using an analytical framework of Keynes–Goodwin model of growth cycle with debt accumulation. Formally, our model is formulated as a five-dimensional system of non-linear differential equations. We consider both of private debt and public debt, and we explicitly formulate the budget constraint of the ‘consolidated government’ including the central bank. We mainly study the case of ‘liquidity trap’ under money and debt financing of the government deficit.We study the local stability/instability of the system and the conditions for the existence of cyclical fluctuations analytically by means of the linear approximation method. We show that the sufficiently active monetary/fiscal policy can stabilize the intrinsically unstable economy if the inflation targeting by the central bank is sufficiently credible. We also present some numerical examples, which support our analysis.