Monetary Policy Rules for a Small Open Economy

In this paper, the optimal choice of a monetary target is investigated for a small open economy that is subject to foreign monetary policy shocks. In contrast to large parts of the literature, pegging the exchange rate is never the best policy choice for the small open economy in our model. Instead, monetary targeting and, depending on the parameter combination, producer price index targeting come closest to the optimal policy rule in terms of welfare. Generally, the welfare performance of the simple targeting rules under consideration hinge critically on the degree of pass-through in the home economy and in the rest of the world.     

Monetary Policy Rules for Transition Economies: An Empirical Analysis

In this paper, we investigate the monetary policy reaction functions for the new European Union member states. We find interesting differences when looking at both interest rates (the Taylor rule) and monetary base (the McCallum rule) as monetary policy rules. Monetary aggregate is more likely to react to the deviation of inflation from its target, while short‐term interest rates are highly sensitive to the deviation of exchange rates in the Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia. For Hungary and Romania, both interest rates and money are responsive to inflation. In empirical literature, much attention is paid to the use of the Taylor‐type rule for developed economies. However, our empirical results raise questions on the reliance of this rule for these transition economies.     

Alternative Strategies for Monetary Policy

The aim of the paper is to emphasize the importance of the central bank's alternative strategies for macroeconomic equilibrium. Using a constrained maximization process founded on a behavioural equation, we underscore the relevance, for monetary policy, of the assumptions adopted by policymakers regarding how the economic system works. In particular, under a flexible exchange rate regime, the relevant hypotheses are those concerning the supply curve. Under a fixed exchange rate regime the relevant assumptions are those related to the maintenance of the currency agreements and to the internal sustainability of an interest rate setting policy. We demonstrate that these hypotheses define the objective pursued and the strategy followed. Furthermore, if they do not coincide with the actual characteristics of the market, the adjustment dynamics of aggregate income and inflation do not allow convergence toward equilibrium. We use the tools of New Consensus Macroeconomics to discuss the implications of the model and to offer an enhanced analytical framework for teaching intermediate macroeconomics without necessarily adopting the mainstream hypotheses.     

汇率制度与货币政策——发展中国家和小国经济的思考

本文中,我们将研究在资本市场对外开放及汇率固定条件下货币政策的管理机制问题。我们的目标是探讨货币政策能否在此种情况下继续独立而有效地稳定国内经济。为此,我们建议两种制度上的约束。给定这些约束,我们证明货币政策仍然有效。同时,本文讨论了此种制度选择对发展中国家和小国经济的意义。     

Capital Mobility, Consumption Substitutability and the Effects of Monetary Policy in Open Economies

Abstract. I use a dynamic general equilibrium two‐country optimizing model to analyze the implications of international capital mobility for the short‐run effects of monetary policy in an open economy. The model implies that the substitutability of goods produced in different countries plays a central role for the impact of changes in the degree of international capital mobility on the effects of monetary policy. Paralleling the results of the traditional Mundell–Fleming model, a higher degree of international capital mobility magnifies the short‐run output effects of monetary policy only if the Marshall–Lerner condition, which is linked to the cross‐country substitutability of goods, holds.     

Monetary Policy and Exchange Rate Interactions in a Small Open Economy

The transmission mechanisms of monetary policy in a small open economy like Norway are analysed through structural VARs, with special emphasis on the interdependence between monetary policy and exchange rate movements. By imposing a long‐run neutrality restriction on the real exchange rate, thereby allowing the interest rate and the exchange rate to react simultaneously to news, I find considerable interdependence between monetary policy and the exchange rate. In particular, following a contractionary monetary policy shock, the real exchange rate immediately appreciates, after which it gradually depreciates back to the baseline. The results are found to be consistent with findings from an “event study”.     

Monetary Policy and Exchange Rate Volatility in a Small Open Economy

We lay out a small open economy version of the Calvo sticky price model, and show how the equilibrium dynamics can be reduced to a simple representation in domestic inflation and the output gap. We use the resulting framework to analyse the macroeconomic implications of three alternative rule-based policy regimes for the small open economy: domestic inflation and CPI-based Taylor rules, and an exchange rate peg. We show that a key difference among these regimes lies in the relative amount of exchange rate volatility that they entail. We also discuss a special case for which domestic inflation targeting constitutes the optimal policy, and where a simple second order approximation to the utility of the representative consumer can be derived and used to evaluate the welfare losses associated with the suboptimal rules.     

Monetary Policy Games and International Migration in a Small Open Economy

The paper shows that international migration may improve the position of both policymakers and unions in small open economies irrespective of whether they cooperate or not. This result implies that both unions and policymakers in small open economies may welcome a further increase in international labor flow in the future. When allowance is made for real GDP per capital considerations on behalf of the policymaker, it is found that aggressive union behavior may increase the inflationary bias. Aggressive unions may insulate themselves, while soft unions lose. The presence of migration does not necessarily lead to a better outcome.     

Monetary Policy Rules and Business Cycles

Basic features of business cycle properties under both exogenous and endogenous monetary policy rules are examined in calibrated dynamic stochastic general equilibrium models with nominal rigidities (the nominal wage contract model, the monopolistic competition model with price adjustment costs and a combination of these models). The experiments show that the difference in business cycle features under exogenous and endogenous monetary policy rules is as large as the change generated by introducing nominal rigidities (and monetary disturbances). This result suggests that, for monetary business cycle research, developing a proper way to incorporate endogenous monetary policy rules may be as important as developing new transmission mechanisms of monetary policy disturbances.     

Alternative Monetary Targets,Instruments and Future Monetary Policy Frameworks

ABSTRACT

This article expands on the debate of whether merely controlling inflation can be considered a good outcome in terms of monetary policy, discussing proposals for adopting alternative monetary targets (e.g., price level, nominal GDP), alternative instruments (e.g., monetary finance, central bank digital currencies), for enlarging central banks' mandates (e.g., incorporating employment, wages, inequality, environmental objectives) and for the design of future monetary policy frameworks.

We argue that in the coming years, central banks should not simply maintain their pre-2008 standards by de-implementing unconventional monetary policies. Instead, they must take advantage of their past and recent experiences in order to improve, under an evolutionary perspective, future monetary policy and financial stability frameworks. Based on this, measures implemented since the 2008 crisis would have three possible treatments in new frameworks: i) be discarded, due to their predominantly adverse effects; ii) not be regularly implemented, but be used as backstop mechanisms if needed; iii) be incorporated as regular measures of monetary policy/financial stability frameworks. Accordingly, monetary and financial stability authorities will increasingly need to evolve and engage in a continuously adaptive and innovative process in order to face challenges posed by financial markets that are becoming more dynamic, innovative, complex, interconnected and globalised.     

Monetary Policy Rules for Managing Aid Surges in Africa

This paper examines the properties of alternative monetary policy rules in response to large aid surges in low-income countries characterized by incomplete capital market integration and currency substitution. Using a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model, it is shown that simple monetary rules that stabilize the path of expected future seigniorage for a given aid flow have attractive properties relative to a range of conventional alternatives, including those involving heavy reliance on bond sterilization or a commitment to a pure exchange rate float. These simple rules, which are shown to be robust across a range of fiscal responses to aid inflows, appear to be consistent with actual responses to recent aid surges in a range of post-stabilization countries in Sub-Saharan Africa.     

Interactions between Monetary and Fiscal Policy Rules

The Fiscal Stability Pact for EMU implies that constraints on fiscal policy facilitate inflation control. In this paper we identify two stable policy regimes. When monetary policy seeks to raise real interest rates in response to excess inflation, a self-stabilising fiscal policy is required to ensure model stability. A fiscal policy which does not, by itself, ensure fiscal solvency constrains monetary policy to be relatively 'passive'. However, in simulations we conclude that the central bank does not need to seek, on this account, the degree of debt stabilisation that appears to be implied by the fiscal stability pact.     

泰勒型规则的研究文献综述

界定经济模型中的货币政策反应函数有多种方法.近年来,随着泰勒规则或者说是泰勒型规则的实际运用,出现了对这一问题进行研究的大量文献.泰勒规则虽然简单并易于控制,但它却体现了货币当局调控行为的本质.本文对有关泰勒型货币政策规则特征的研究文献做了一个简要回顾,并考察了对泰勒原式的修正以及运用和设计泰勒规则的理论及实证问题.     

Environmental Policy in Open Economies and Monopolistic Competition

This paper analyses the implications of international trade for non-cooperative environmental policy in the case of local production externalities. A particular focus is on the potential effects of regulations on the variety of goods and the resulting international spillover caused by trade. A tougher domestic standard negatively affects the utility of the households abroad, since such a policy reduces their variety of imports (due to fewer domestic product inventions) or their consumption of each imported brand (due to higher import prices). Ignoring the negative spillover, non-cooperative governments implement inefficiently strict standards in equilibrium. In contrast to this clear-cut inefficiency result, the impact of international trade on the state of the environment is ambiguous.     

Monetary and Fiscal Policy Rules in the EMU

Abstract. This paper studies the design and effects of monetary and fiscal policy in the euro area. To do so, a stylized two‐region model of monetary and fiscal policy rules in the EMU is built. We analyse how monetary and fiscal rules affect the adjustment dynamics in the model. Both the effects on the individual countries and on the EMU aggregate economy are studied. Three aspects play an important role in the analysis: (i) the consequences of alternative monetary and fiscal policy rules, (ii) the consequences of asymmetries between EMU countries (asymmetries in macroeconomic shocks and macroeconomic structures), and (iii) the role of alternative degrees of backward‐ and forward‐looking behaviour in consumer decisions and inflation expectations.