Monetary Policy Coordination and the Level of National Debt

This paper uses the Canzoneri-Henderson benchmark framework of monetary policy coordination in interdependent economies to analyze how high levels of national debt affect monetary policy interactions. Using a two-country model, I first study how central banks interact in a flexible exchange-rate regime. I find that a low-debt country is better off interacting with a country with high debt, when both economies are affected by an aggregate inflationary shock. I also consider a political dependence scenario, in which central banks are subject to political pressure. In the case of a debt-burdened country, the political incentive to reduce interest payments on debt will spur a Gordon–Barro like inflation bias. However, under a flexible exchange-rate regime, the low-debt country will not be affected. Under a monetary union instead, political pressure may affect the low-debt country as well, and possibly create an inflation bias even greaterthan in the flexible exchange-rate regime. This scenario presents another example of how Rogoff's counterproductive monetary cooperation may arise under European Monetary Union.