Optimal monetary and fiscal policy in a currency union

We lay out a tractable model for the analysis of optimal monetary and fiscal policy in a currency union. The monetary authority sets a common interest rate for the union, whereas fiscal policy is implemented at the country level, through the choice of government spending. In the presence of country-specific shocks and nominal rigidities, the policy mix that is optimal from the viewpoint of the union as a whole requires that inflation be stabilized at the union level by the common central bank, whereas fiscal policy has a country-specific stabilization role, one beyond the efficient provision of public goods.     

Monetary policy and welfare in a small open economy

This paper analyzes optimal monetary policy in a small open economy featuring monopolistic competition and nominal rigidities. It shows that the utility-based loss function for this economy can be written as a quadratic expression of domestic inflation, output gap and real exchange rate. The presence of an internal monopolistic distortion and a terms of trade externality drives optimal policy away from domestic inflation targeting and affects the optimal level of exchange rate volatility. When domestic and foreign goods are close substitutes for each other, the optimal policy rule implies lower real exchange rate volatility than a domestic inflation targeting regime. The reverse is true when the elasticity of substitution between goods is low.     

Dove or Hawk? Characterizing monetary policy regime switches in India

The past two decades have witnessed a worldwide move by emerging markets to adopt explicit or implicit inflation targeting regimes. A notable and often discussed exception to this trend, of course, is China which follows a pegged exchange rate regime supported by capital controls. Another major exception is India. It is not clear how to characterize the monetary regime or identify the nominal monetary anchor in India. Is central bank policy in India following a predictable rule that is heavily influenced by a quasi inflation target? And how has the monetary regime been affected by the gradual process of financial liberalization in India? To address these points, we investigate monetary policy regime change in India using a Markov switching model to estimate a time-varying Taylor-type rule for the Reserve Bank of India. We find that the conduct of monetary policy over the last two decades can be characterized by two regimes, which we term ‘Hawk’ and ‘Dove.’ In the first of these two regimes, the central bank reveals a greater relative (though not absolute) weight on controlling inflation vis-à-vis narrowing the output gap. The central bank however was found to be in the “Dove” regime about half of our sample period, focusing more on the output gap and exchange rate targets to stimulate exports, rather than moderating inflation. India thus seems to be following its own direction in the conduct of monetary policy, seemingly not overly influenced by the emphasis on quasi-inflation targeting seen in many emerging markets.     

小型开放经济环境下的最优货币政策设计

在经典的小型开放经济框架内,植入一个现金预留(CIA)模型,研究多重冲击下小型开放经济的最优货币政策设计问题,结果显示:汇率波动、货币流通速度冲击、财政冲击以及家庭消费冲击等通过成本渠道对物价和产出产生了直接影响。因此,在为小型开放经济体制定货币政策时,货币当局应充分考虑这些因素,使货币政策调控不仅对产出和通货膨胀的波动做出反应,而且对汇率波动和上述冲击也应做出适当的调整。此外,为营造有利的货币政策实施环境,外汇市场应实行有管理的浮动汇率制度。     

Optimal monetary policy in a currency area

This paper investigates how monetary policy should be conducted in a two-region general equilibrium model with monopolistic competition and price stickiness. This framework delivers a simple welfare criterion based on the utility of the consumers that can be used to evaluate monetary policy in a currency area. If the two regions share the same degree of nominal rigidity, the terms of trade are completely insulated from monetary policy and the optimal outcome is obtained by targeting a weighted average of the regional inflation rates. These weights coincide with the economic sizes of the region. If the degrees of rigidity are different, the optimal plan implies a high degree of inertia in the inflation rate. But an inflation targeting policy in which higher weight is given to the inflation in the region with higher degree of nominal rigidity is nearly optimal.     

通货膨胀目标制的政策内涵及其应用

本文从分析货币政策的规则和相机抉择之争入手，分析通货膨胀目标制作为名义锚在货币政策中的作用与政策含义，在此基础上探讨如何有效地设计和实行通货膨胀目标制。本文认为，我国货币政策在向通货膨胀目标制过渡过程中，要明确货币政策和汇率政策的主从地位，增强中央银行的独立性以及对宏观经济的分析和预测能力，解决中央银行承担最后贷款人义务而造成的通货膨胀隐患，建立核心通货膨胀指标。     

中国货币政策对银行风险承担行为的影响研究——基于异质性视角

国际金融危机的爆发引发了理论界对货币政策是否影响银行体系稳定更为广泛的关注。文章基于异质性视角构建动态面板数据模型对货币政策与银行风险承担行为之间的关系进行估计,研究结果表明：2003-2011年,货币政策变量对银行风险偏好的影响具有时滞性,贷款利率提高有助于抑制银行风险,货币供应量增加会刺激银行更加冒险;不同银行对货币政策冲击会做出异质反应,随着资本充足率的提高,货币政策对银行风险承担行为的影响效果减弱。因此,加强中国人民银行在宏观审慎监管中的主导作用、建立逆周期的货币政策和资本监管协调机制是后金融危机时代我国监管当局的重要议题。     

Japan's Negative Risk Premium in Interest Rates: The Liquidity Trap and the Fall in Bank Lending

Japan's interest rates have been compressed toward zero because of pressure coming through the foreign exchanges. Twenty years of current‐account surpluses have led to a huge buildup of claims – mainly dollars – on foreigners. Because of ongoing fluctuations in the yen/dollar exchange rate, Japanese financial institutions will only willingly hold these dollar claims if the nominal yield on them is substantially higher than on yen assets. In the 1990s to 2002 as US interest rates have come down, portfolio equilibrium has been sustained only when nominal interest rates on yen assets have been forced toward zero. One consequence is the now infamous liquidity trap for Japanese monetary policy. A second consequence is the erosion of the normal profit margins of Japan's commercial banks, leading to a slump in new bank credit and an inability to grow out of the overhang of old bad loans.     

零利率下限约束、宏观经济波动与混合型货币政策框架

宏观经济持续低迷引发学界关于货币政策有效性的广泛讨论。本文构建包含名义利率零下限约束的混合型货币政策框架,据以系统比较存在和不存在零利率下限约束两种情形下宏观经济波动异质性以及货币政策有效性的差异。研究发现,总需求下降时零利率下限约束情形下产出下降和通缩程度更为严重;总供给下降不会引致名义利率触及零利率下限以致宏观经济波动演变无明显差异;零利率下限约束情形下央行数量型调控的有效性显著降低,价格型调控则完全失效。本文认为考虑零利率下限约束的建模更宜刻画现实经济周期和宏观调控效力,忽视零利率下限约束会对宏观经济预判和政策调控有效性的认识产生偏误;需求低迷环境下“数量型调控为主、价格型调控为辅”的政策组合仍为央行合意的货币调控范式,央行须更加关注降低实际资金利率;政府应注重宏观政策协调配合,实施更加积极的财政政策以与货币政策发挥有效政策合力,促使实体经济趋稳高质发展以摆脱利率下限约束困境。     

货币政策名义锚理论的发展与实践述评

实现物价稳定是世界各国货币政策的最终目标。名义锚有助于货币当局建立货币政策信誉,增强其控制通货膨胀的能力。汇率目标制、货币供应量目标制和通货膨胀目标制是三种主要的名义锚。名义锚的演变历程表明,名义锚的选择问题是一个不断变化的动态体系。随着经济的进一步开放,名义锚的选择更加关键和复杂。选择哪种名义锚在很大程度上取决于不同国家的社会经济金融状况和背景。     

Inflation targeting rules and welfare in an asymmetric currency area

This paper studies the effect on monetary policy of differing degrees of competition and differing degrees of nominal rigidity between the members of a monetary union. In particular, we assess the welfare loss brought about by the use of a simple interest rate rule that does not take into account such structural differences. Our results show that, ceteris paribus, to maximize welfare the central bank should react more strongly to inflation pressure generated by the more competitive economies. Our work extends the results of Benigno [Benigno, P., 2004. Optimal monetary policy in a currency area. Journal of International Economics 63, 293-320] by showing that, if the degree of competition differs between countries, the optimal rule could involve placing a greater weight on the more “flexible” countries. Our study suggests that the size of the welfare losses generated by failure to take account of these asymmetries depends crucially on the actual combination of the various asymmetries. As a consequence, we show that, if the optimal weights are chosen under incomplete information regarding the extent and type of asymmetries, the resulting level of welfare could be lower than that produced by the symmetric rule.     

我国货币中性的实证研究

国际金融危机爆发以来,降低利率、增加流通中货币成了各国政府解决金融危机的共同做法,货币对于经济的积极作用再次引起人们的关注。过于宽松的货币政策能持续多久,会不会造成严重的通货膨胀,进而破坏经济的健康发展,也同样引起人们的关注。本文对我国1978-2009年的流通中货币、利率、物价指数对GDP的影响进行了实证研究,结果表明流通中货币不是实际GDP增长的格兰杰原因,货币是中性的;GDP的实际增长率是实际利率的格兰杰原因,名义利率和GDP没有因果关系;GDP和物价指数没有格兰杰因果关系,通货膨胀不能促进经济的增长。     

Central Banking After the Crisis: No Return to Past Certainties

Before the 2008 crisis, macroeconomic theory and central bank practice regarded low and stable inflation to be a policy objective that was sufficient to ensure macroeconomic and financial stability. There was little concern with the details of the financial system or balance sheet aggregates. This article makes the case that these details are important and that monetary and macroprudential policy must control both the quantity and allocation of credit. This entails a revision of conventional monetary theory as well as policy, particularly to explain the paradox of the precrisis situation of so much credit and so little inflation. The particular role of real estate investment is described as a source of financial instability that can only be addressed by nuanced monetary and macroprudential policy.     

An Empirical Analysis of the Determinants of Interest Rates in Ghana

ABSTRACT

This paper provides an empirical analysis of the determinants of the bank lending rate in Ghana using annual time series data from 1970 to 2013. We found evidence of a long-run equilibrium relationship between the average lending rate charged by commercial banks and its determining factors. In the long run, bank lending rates in Ghana are positively influenced by nominal exchange rates and Bank of Ghana’s monetary policy rate but negatively with fiscal deficit, real GDP and inflation. We also find positive dependence of the bank lending rate on exchange rates, and the monetary policy rate both in the short and long run. Specifically, our findings reveal that the Bank of Ghana’s monetary policy rate and the exchange rate, by far, show strong contemporaneous effects on the average bank lending rate in Ghana.     

基于市场预期行为的货币政策透明度检验

通过考察金融市场参与者的行为变化或分析市场利率在政策公告后的变化趋势,可以间接对货币政策透明度进行度量;利用相应的货币政策透明度检验模型和我国金融市场的利率数据进行检验,可知我国中央银行在基准利率调整和准备金率改变等重大的政策决策上,货币当局更倾向于采用模糊的政策操作方式,由此会导致市场预期的混乱,并最终对政策实施效果产生负面影响,因此,我国有必要借鉴西方国家的政策操作经验,进一步增加政策操作方面的透明度,并借以最终建立一个简单透明、效率更高的政策调控框架。     

Twin dollarization and exchange rate policy

This paper develops a small open economy general equilibrium model with nominal rigidities to study twin dollarization in East Asian economies, a phenomenon where firms borrow in US dollars and also set export prices in US dollars. In this model, we endogenize both the currency of liability denomination and the currency of export pricing. We show that a key factor that affects firms' dollarization decisions is exchange rate policy. Twin dollarization is an optimal strategy for all firms when exchange rate flexibility is limited, which implies that a fixed exchange rate regime may lead to an equilibrium with twin dollarization. Furthermore, we find that twin dollarization can reduce the welfare loss caused by the fixed exchange rate regime, as it helps to cushion the economy against domestic nominal risk.     

The ECB During the Financial Crisis. Not so Unconventional!

The European Central Bank's balance sheet has expanded notably, without banks granting more credit, and the overnight interest rate has stayed close to the deposit facility level for long periods of time since the onset of the financial crisis. This appears to go against the logic implicit in the post‐Keynesian Horizontalist approach to monetary macroeconomics, which links reserves to credit and holds that a central bank accommodates the demand for reserves in order to control the overnight interest rate. In this article, we analyze the monetary policy implemented by the ECB since the third quarter of 2008, with a view to studying its implications for monetary theory, concluding that this approach can still explain much of what has happened in the Euro Zone in the last troubled years, despite paradoxically, there being excess reserves and simultaneously accepting that reserves are demand led, and that the ECB has lent them at the official rate while the overnight interest rate has been close to the deposit facility rate. Further, this analysis reveals that mainstream monetary theory has not been very useful, because neither the link between reserves and loans nor the relation between reserves and inflation have worked. This leads us to believe that some transmission channels of the monetary policy implemented by the ECB since late 2014, which can be deemed unconventional, will not perform well.     

论中国通货膨胀下的货币政策有效性

在当今社会经济通货膨胀的状态下,中央银行首先应做的就是通过制定的货币政策抑制通货膨胀。本文通过对通货膨胀的现状及原因的分析,从而进一步探究中央银行制定的货币政策种类及其效应的积极性和局限性。     

Is the US Dollar a Suitable Anchor for the Newly Proposed GCC Currency?

Responses of inflation and non‐oil output growth from the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries to monetary policy shocks from the United States (US) were estimated to determine whether there is evidence to support the US dollar as the anchor for the proposed unified currency. A structural vector autoregression identified with short‐run restrictions was employed for each country with Fed funds rate as the US monetary policy instrument, non‐oil output growth and inflation. The main results suggest that for inflation, the GCC countries show synchronised responses to monetary policy shocks from the US which are similar to inflation in the US, and for non‐oil output growth, there is no clear indication that US monetary policy can be as effective for the GCC countries as it is domestically. Consequently, importing US monetary policy via a dollar peg may guarantee only stable inflation for the GCC countries – not necessarily stable non‐oil output growth. If the non‐oil output response is made conscientiously – and there are concerns over the dollar’s ability to perform its role as a store of value – a basket peg with both the US dollar and the euro may be a sound alternative as confirmed by the variance decomposition analysis of our augmented SVAR with a proxy for the European short‐term interest rate.