The need for economic policy coordination between Europe,Japan, and the United States: Policy recommendations for the 1990s

Better policy coordination between Europe, Japan, and the United States is urgently needed in order to restore economic growth and to diminish mutual trade imbalances. Using the EC Compact model it is shown how coordinated fiscal policies can contribute to reaching these goals in the 1990s. For Europe, the most plausible fiscal policy option seems to be a combination of lower direct taxes, public spending cuts, and wage moderation; for Japan a more expansionary fiscal policy is feasible. For the United States, however, public spending cuts or tax increases are necessary conditions for better economic performance. In addition, for all three blocks a swap between tax reduction and wage moderation is recommended.     

Fiscal policy in monetary unions: Implications for Europe

This paper analyzes how the feasible mix of government expenditure and financing arrangements may change with the establishment of a monetary union such as that planned by members of the European Community. We find that a monetary union reduces the feasible divergence across countries in their present discounted levels of fiscal spending. Wide differences across countries in their present and future time patterns of spending are still possible, however. Examination of the empirical evidence suggests that the movement toward greater exchange rate fixity associated with the EMS and participation in quasi monetary unions havenot been accompanied by significant fiscal convergence. The experience of member states of several existing monetary unions, however, suggests that a more effective constraint to budgetary discipline arises within full-fledged unions in operation over long periods, even in the absence of binding central rules on government deficit and debt positions.     

财政政策与货币政策的动态搭配和组合模式

基于经济周期的不同阶段,从IS-LM曲线和供求理论的双重视角解析利用财政政策与货币政策对宏观经济进行调控的内在机理,揭示两类政策搭配组合的理论逻辑,分析制约财政政策与货币政策调控效应的现实因素。研究发现,财政政策与货币政策的搭配组合要根据经济发展的不同阶段进行动态供给,以满足经济周期不同阶段的需求,如此方能实现经济的稳定增长。现阶段,我国应采取“更加积极的财政政策与稳健适度的货币政策”这一政策组合。产品市场与货币市场对利率的弱敏感性使政策刺激经济的效果受到制约,因而两类政策不仅要在总量层面“对冲”经济增速减缓的压力,而且要在结构层面增强协调性。     

Fiscal policy independence in a European Monetary Union

Do plans for a monetary union in Europe call for limits on the freedom of the country members of the union to use fiscal policy? In order to provide a tentative answer, we simulate the IMF model MULTIMOD, given various shocks, in the case of a European Monetary Union consisting only of France and Germany. The results clearly indicate the possible value of allowing unfettered use of fiscal policy in both countries. The reasons lie partly in differences in the initial position of the two, partly in differences in their preferences. We also examine the change in the policy significance of the current account in the monetary union. Current account imbalances clearly cease to have the same significance in a monetary union; but they do not therefore become irrelevant.     

Policy Effectiveness in the Post-ERM Era: Evidence from Six Countries

The objective of this paper is to determine whether ERM-participating countries have experienced a change in the effectiveness of monetary and fiscal policies since the establishment of the ERM. Countries which have come to rely more heavily on fiscal policy instruments as the means of output, price and exchange rate stabilization since the establishment of the ERM (and currently exceed the fiscal criteria) are expected to find the Maastricht fiscal criteria restrictive and perhaps destabilizing. We find that Belgium, Italy and Ireland are the countries that are likely to face the most difficulties.     

货币与财政政策后续效应评估:40次银行危机样本

以20世纪80年代以来40次重要的系统性银行危机为基础,对金融危机后的货币政策和财政政策选择进行实证评价。实证结果表明,"适度扩张"的货币政策和财政政策能产生相对较优的经济效果,应成为金融危机后的主要政策选择,但由于两种政策刺激或稳定经济的效力都集中体现在短期,为避免持续和大规模货币扩张和财政赤字带来的负面影响,一旦危机消退、经济企稳回升,之前作为"反危机工具"出现的扩张性货币和财政政策就应该逐步淡出。     

The role of credibility in the cyclical properties of macroeconomic policies in emerging economies

Optimal stabilization policy is countercyclical, aiming at keeping output close to its potential. However it has been traditionally argued that emerging countries are unable to adopt countercyclical monetary and fiscal policies. Here we argue that the cyclical properties of macroeconomic policies depend critically on policy credibility. We test this proposition by making use of recent panel data for eleven emerging market economies and time series data for Chile. The evidence supports that countries with higher credibility, as reflected by lower country risk levels, are able to conduct countercyclical fiscal and monetary policies. Conversely, countries with less credible policies (and, therefore, with higher country risk spreads) contribute to larger cyclical fluctuations by applying procyclical policies. For Chile we find that both monetary and fiscal policies have been largely countercyclical after 1993. JEL no. E43, E52, E62     

What are the Trade Spill-Overs from Fiscal Shocks in Europe? An Empirical Analysis***

We use a Vector Auto Regression (VAR) analysis to explore the (trade spill-over) effects of fiscal policy shocks in Europe. To enhance comparability with the existing literature, we first analyse the effects of these shocks at the national level. Here, we employ identification based on Choleski decomposition and a structural VAR, both of which lead to the same results. Then, we turn to study the cross-border spill-overs of fiscal shocks via the trade channel. Fiscal expansions in Germany, France and Italy lead to significant increases in imports from a number of European countries. In order to mimic the case of monetary union, we also shut off the effects via the short-term interest rate and the nominal exchange rate and find a slight strengthening on average of the cross-country spill-overs from a fiscal expansion. These results suggest that it may be worthwhile to further investigate the possibility of enhanced fiscal coordination.*** This research is part of the RTN project ‘Macroeconomic Policy Design for Monetary Unions’, funded by the European Commission (contract number HPRN-CT-2002-00237). We thank two anonymous referees, a referee for the ECB Working Paper series, Peter Claeys, David-Jan Jansen, Franc Klaassen, Roberto Perotti and audiences at the Dutch Central Bank and the CEPR/CREI Conference ‘Designing a Macroeconomic Policy Framework for Europe’ (Barcelona, 2004) for many helpful comments. A large part of this paper was written while Beetsma was visiting the Directorate-General for Research of the ECB. He thanks the ECB for the stimulating research environment. The views expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not commit any of.cial institution. The usual disclaimer applies.     

Delegation and Fiscal Policy in the Open Economy: More Bad News for Rogoff's Delegation Game

This article studies the open-economy Rogoff delegation game, taking into account both intra-country and intercountry interactions between fiscal authorities and central banks. With representative bankers, the Nash equilibrium of fiscal and monetary authorities independently responding to supply-side shocks sees insufficient monetary adjustment and an imbalance towards fiscal stabilization if shocks are sufficiently symmetric; the opposite occurs if shocks are sufficiently asymmetric. Appointing conservative bankers shifts the fiscal–monetary balance away from monetary towards fiscal policy. Unilateral delegation benefits that country; but when all countries independently delegate, the outcome is only favorable if shocks are sufficiently asymmetric.     

Macroeconomic stabilization through monetary and fiscal policy coordination: Implications for European Monetary Union

In a two-country model, we consider the implications of monetary and fiscal policy coordination for macroeconomic stabilization. We show that the optimal regime is one of monetary and fiscal policy coordination under flexible exchange rates. In the context of the European Community, this suggests that the desire to fix exchange rates may not be costless. In addition, we show that fiscal coordination requires a relatively high degree of flexibility in fiscal policy. This result suggests that limits on the flexibility of fiscal policies, as suggested in the Delors Report, may hinder macroeconomic stabilization.     

政府支出与经济波动——基于省级面板数据的实证分析

政府支出能否起到稳定经济增长的作用是一个值得研究的重要问题。使用1987-2013年30个省市自治区的面板数据,文章考察了政府支出对我国经济波动的影响。在考虑政府支出规模的内生性后,2SLS估计结果发现政府支出对经济波动的影响具有两面性。一方面政府支出规模主要发挥了财政自动稳定器作用,因而减少了经济波动;另一方面,政府支出变动对总量产出冲击较大,从而增加了经济波动。进一步控制了贸易开放、通货膨胀、货币政策冲击、金融发展和产业结构等因素,估计结果表现出较好的稳健性。研究结论意味着,在保持经济稳定增长方面,需要权衡政府支出规模与政府支出变动对经济波动的影响。     

Mix of Fiscal and Monetary Policy Rules and Inflation Dynamics in China

The present paper examines the role of the mix of fiscal and monetary policy rules in determining inflation dynamics using fiscal and monetary policy reaction functions and Markov‐switching vector autoregression methods based on quarterly data in the period 1992–2007. Our results show that fiscal and monetary policies in China can be adequately described using some simple rules, and that significant regime shifts took place around 1998. Fiscal policy tended to be active and countercyclical in the pre‐1998 period, then switched to be passive and more countercyclical, whereas monetary policy was characterized as passive and procyclical in the pre‐1998 period, and switched to be active and countercyclical afterwards. The mix of fiscal and monetary policy rules can explain inflation dynamics better than the monetary policy rule alone. Therefore, price stability requires not only appropriate monetary policy but also appropriate fiscal policy.     

Fiscal Policy and Macroeconomic Stabilizations: What are the Gains from Cooperation?

In this paper we extend the open-economy stochastic framework of Obstfeld and Rogoff (Q J Econ. 117:503–36, 2002) to include distortionary taxation, when prices are flexible but wages are sticky. We use the model to analyze the optimal design of tax rules that respond to productivity shocks, under non-cooperation and cooperation between the fiscal authorities, and evaluate the gains from coordination. We show that, although monetary policy would be preferred to fiscal policy as a stabilization tool both under competition (Nash) and under cooperation, there is a role for procyclical fiscal stabilization in a monetary union where the monetary authority cannot respond to asymmetric shocks. Moreover, we show that in the Nash game there will be an incentive for the fiscal authorities to try to manipulate the terms-of-trade in their favor, and we estimate the potential gains from fiscal policy coordination. The size of the gains depends crucially on the value of the Frisch elasticity of labor supply. For lower values of the Frisch elasticity (more in line with microeconometric estimates) the gains are relatively small, but for more elastic labor supplies (more in agreement with the business cycle literature) the gains can be very large.

Rules,discretion, and international monetary and fiscal policy coordination

This paper considers the implications of international policy coordination when both monetary and fiscal policy choices are endogenous. We show that a movement from insular monetary commitment to international monetary policy coordination will, if fiscal policies are not coordinated, produce higher output and public expenditure levels at the expense of higher inflation rates. We also show that the concurrent coordination of monetary and fiscal policies raises output and inflation while lowering public expenditure relative to a regime of monetary coordination alone. We conclude that the arguments for concurrent monetary and fiscal policy coordination fail to have a clear-cut theoretical basis.     

浅析金融危机带给我国的经验和启示

通过分析金融危机对我国产生的机遇和挑战,提出坚持推进金融体制改革,及时调整货币政策和财政政策是预防及应对金融危机的不二法门。我们应该抓住机遇,进一步承担更大的责任,提升我国的国际地位,从而实现和平崛起。     

Strategic Interactions Among Central Bank and National Fiscal Authorities in a Monetary Union Subject to Asymmetric Country Shocks

In this paper we extend Nordhaus’ (Brookings Pap Econ Act (2):139–199, 1994) results to an environment which may represent the current European situation, characterised by a single monetary authority and several fiscal bodies. We show that, even assuming that the monetary and the fiscal authorities share the same ideal targets, in the presence of asymmetric shocks the “symbiosis” result found by Dixit and Lambertini (J Int Econ 60:235–247, 2003) no longer obtains. Thus, fiscal rules as those envisaged in the Maastricht Treaty and in the Stability and Growth Pact may work as monetary/fiscal coordination devices that improve welfare. The imposition of common targets, however, may work as a substitute for policy coordination only if these are made state contingent, an aspect that the recent version of the Stability and Growth Pact takes into account in a more appropriate way than its original version.

Two-Country Models of Monetary and Fiscal Policy: What Have We Learned? What More Can We Learn?

This paper surveys the literature that uses two-country models to analyze monetary and fiscal policy issues faced in interdependent economies. We discuss sources of structural interdependence that researchers typically include in these models. We describe many of the types of policy interactions that researchers have considered and summarize the key results that they have obtained. Finally, we briefly explain the limitations of two-country models and outline directions that this literature might usefully be extended.     

国际金融危机下我国积极财政政策的效应评析

由美国次贷引发的国际金融危机对我国经济产生了巨大的冲击。在出口、投资和消费均出现下滑的态势下,我国政府果断出台了扩大内需的积极财政政策,以实现稳定经济增长的目标。本文在分析国际金融危机背景下我国经济基本走势的基础上,对我国政府实施的积极财政政策进行了政策回顾及效应评析,充分肯定了积极财政政策在应对国际金融危机中发挥的积极作用。     

Estimating local fiscal multipliers using political connections

We use political connections between central and local governments in China to identify the effects of government spending. Our key innovation is using changes of central government ministers as a source of exogenous variation in earmarked transfers received by prefectural city-level governments. The analysis reveals that the increase in earmarked transfers is temporary and local effective tax rates do not respond to such fiscal expansions. Given that using cross-regional analysis for a monetary union can difference out the influence of monetary policy, the fiscal shock we study is a temporary, non-tax financed and no-monetary-policy-response government spending shock. We find the local fiscal multiplier in China is above one and there are no significant spillover effects from local government spending.     

Investment-saving comovement under endogenous fiscal policy

I expand Feldstein's (1983) model by including flexible exchange rate and by introducing endogenous fiscal policy. Using this model, I demonstrate how a positive investment-saving correlation can arise in a world with endogenous fiscal policy. I show that this correlation does not depend on capital mobility and therefore is compatible with any degree of capital mobility. This implies that the observed investment-saving comovement is not necessarily due to imperfect capital mobility. The model has a testable implication: it predicts a lack of Granger causality from private saving to private investment. Empirical examination of this prediction indicates that U.S. time series data is compatible with the hypothesis of endogenous fiscal policy during a flexible exchange rate period, but not during a fixed exchange rate period.