[go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/imf/imfwpa/2008-164.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Strategic Interactions between an Independent Central Bank and a Myopic Government with Government Debt

Author

Listed:
  • Sven Jari Stehn
  • Mr. David A Vines
Abstract
We analyse optimal discretionary games between a benevolent central bank and a myopic government in a New Keynesian model. First, when lump-sum taxes are available and public debt is absent, we show that a Nash game results in too much government spending and excessively high interest rates, while fiscal leadership reinstates the cooperative outcome under discretion. Second, we show that this familiar result breaks down when lump-sum taxes are unavailable. With government debt, the Nash equilibrium still entails too much public spending but leads to lower interest rates than the cooperative policy, because debt has to be adjusted back to its pre-shock level to ensure time consistency. A setup of fiscal leadership does not avoid this socially costly outcome. Imposing a debt penalty onto the myopic government under either Nash or fiscal leadership raises welfare substantially, while appointing a conservative central bank is less effective.

Suggested Citation

  • Sven Jari Stehn & Mr. David A Vines, 2008. "Strategic Interactions between an Independent Central Bank and a Myopic Government with Government Debt," IMF Working Papers 2008/164, International Monetary Fund.
    • Handle: RePEc:imf:imfwpa:2008/164
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/cat/longres.aspx?sk=22078
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Currie,David & Levine,Paul, 2009. "Rules, Reputation and Macroeconomic Policy Coordination," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521104609, September.
    2. Tatiana Kirsanova & Simon Wren‐Lewis, 2012. "Optimal Fiscal Feedback on Debt in an Economy with Nominal Rigidities," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 122(559), pages 238-264, March.
    3. Mark Gertler & Jordi Gali & Richard Clarida, 1999. "The Science of Monetary Policy: A New Keynesian Perspective," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 37(4), pages 1661-1707, December.
    4. Leeper, Eric M., 1991. "Equilibria under 'active' and 'passive' monetary and fiscal policies," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(1), pages 129-147, February.
    5. Persson, Torsten & Tabellini, Guido, 1999. "Political economics and macroeconomic policy," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & M. Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 22, pages 1397-1482, Elsevier.
    6. Francesca Castellani & Xavier Debrun, 2005. "Designing Macroeconomic Frameworks: A Positive Analysis of Monetary and Fiscal Delegation," International Finance, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 8(1), pages 87-117, March.
    7. Beetsma, Roel M. W. J. & Lans Bovenberg, A., 1997. "Designing fiscal and monetary institutions in a second-best world," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 13(1), pages 53-79, February.
    8. Maurice Obstfeld, 1989. "Dynamic Seigniorage Theory: An Exploration," NBER Working Papers 2869, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Avinash Dixit & Luisa Lambertini, 2003. "Interactions of Commitment and Discretion in Monetary and Fiscal Policies," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(5), pages 1522-1542, December.
    10. Rogoff, Kenneth, 1990. "Equilibrium Political Budget Cycles," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(1), pages 21-36, March.
    11. McCallum, Bennett T, 1995. "Two Fallacies Concerning Central-Bank Independence," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(2), pages 207-211, May.
    12. Mark Gertler & Jordi Gali & Richard Clarida, 1999. "The Science of Monetary Policy: A New Keynesian Perspective," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 37(4), pages 1661-1707, December.
    13. Schmitt-Grohe, Stephanie & Uribe, Martin, 2007. "Optimal simple and implementable monetary and fiscal rules," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(6), pages 1702-1725, September.
    14. Campbell Leith & Simon Wren-Lewis, 2013. "Fiscal Sustainability in a New Keynesian Model," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 45(8), pages 1477-1516, December.
    15. Ms. Garima Vasishtha & Mr. Taimur Baig & Mr. Manmohan S. Kumar & Ms. Edda Zoli, 2006. "Fiscal and Monetary Nexus in Emerging Market Economies: How Does Debt Matter?," IMF Working Papers 2006/184, International Monetary Fund.
    16. Pierpaolo Benigno & Michael Woodford, 2004. "Optimal Monetary and Fiscal Policy: A Linear-Quadratic Approach," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 2003, Volume 18, pages 271-364, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Luisa Lambertini, 2006. "Monetary–Fiscal Interactions With A Conservative Central Bank," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 53(1), pages 90-128, February.
    18. Beetsma, Roel M. W. J. & Bovenberg, A. Lans, 1997. "Central bank independence and public debt policy," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 21(4-5), pages 873-894, May.
    19. repec:sae:niesru:v:164:y::i:1:p:100-109 is not listed on IDEAS
    20. Leith, Campbell & Wren-Lewis, Simon, 2000. "Interactions between Monetary and Fiscal Policy Rules," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 110(462), pages 93-108, March.
    21. Cukierman, Alex & Edwards, Sebastian & Tabellini, Guido, 1992. "Seigniorage and Political Instability," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(3), pages 537-555, June.
    22. Alberto Alesina & Guido Tabellini, 1990. "A Positive Theory of Fiscal Deficits and Government Debt," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 57(3), pages 403-414.
    23. Mats Persson & Torsten Persson & Lars E. O. Svensson, 2006. "Time Consistency of Fiscal and Monetary Policy: A Solution," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 74(1), pages 193-212, January.
    24. Kenneth Rogoff, 1985. "The Optimal Degree of Commitment to an Intermediate Monetary Target," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 100(4), pages 1169-1189.
    25. Svan Jari Stehn & David Vines, 2007. "Debt Stabilisation Bias And The Taylor Principle: Optimal Policy In A New Keynesian Model With Government Debt And Inflation Persistence," CAMA Working Papers 2007-22, Centre for Applied Macroeconomic Analysis, Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University.
    26. Alesina, Alberto & Tabellini, Guido, 1987. "Rules and Discretion with Noncoordinated Monetary and Fiscal Policies," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 25(4), pages 619-630, October.
    27. Vines, David & Stehn, Sven Jari, 2008. "Debt Stabilisation Bias and the Taylor Principle: Optimal Policy in a New Keynesian Model with Government Debt and Inflation Pe," CEPR Discussion Papers 6696, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    28. Soderlind, Paul, 1999. "Solution and estimation of RE macromodels with optimal policy," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 43(4-6), pages 813-823, April.
    29. Eggertsson, Gauti B., 2006. "The Deflation Bias and Committing to Being Irresponsible," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 38(2), pages 283-321, March.
    30. John B. Taylor, 1999. "Monetary Policy Rules," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number tayl99-1.
    31. Michael Woodford, 2003. "Optimal Interest-Rate Smoothing," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 70(4), pages 861-886.
    32. Ms. Srobona Mitra, 2007. "Is the Quantity of Government Debt a Constraint for Monetary Policy?," IMF Working Papers 2007/062, International Monetary Fund.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Simon Wren-Lewis & Fabian Eser, 2009. "When is Monetary Policy All we Need?," Economics Series Working Papers 430, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    2. Hallett, Andrew Hughes & Acocella, Nicola & Di Bartolomeo, Giovanni, 2010. "Policy games, policy neutrality and Tinbergen controllability under rational expectations," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 55-67, March.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Vines, David & Stehn, Sven Jari, 2008. "Debt Stabilisation Bias and the Taylor Principle: Optimal Policy in a New Keynesian Model with Government Debt and Inflation Pe," CEPR Discussion Papers 6696, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    2. Bai, Yuting & Kirsanova, Tatiana & Leith, Campbell, 2017. "Nominal targeting in an economy with government debt," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 103-125.
    3. Svan Jari Stehn & David Vines, 2007. "Debt Stabilisation Bias And The Taylor Principle: Optimal Policy In A New Keynesian Model With Government Debt And Inflation Persistence," CAMA Working Papers 2007-22, Centre for Applied Macroeconomic Analysis, Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University.
    4. Tatiana Kirsanova & Simon Wren‐Lewis, 2012. "Optimal Fiscal Feedback on Debt in an Economy with Nominal Rigidities," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 122(559), pages 238-264, March.
    5. Schaumburg, Ernst & Tambalotti, Andrea, 2007. "An investigation of the gains from commitment in monetary policy," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(2), pages 302-324, March.
    6. Tatiana Kirsanova & Sven Jari Stehn & David Vines, 2006. "Five-Equation Macroeconomics A Simple View of the Interactions Between Fiscal Policy and Monetary Policy," Discussion Papers 0610, University of Exeter, Department of Economics.
    7. Andrew P. Blake & Tatiana Kirsanova, 2012. "Discretionary Policy and Multiple Equilibria in LQ RE Models," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 79(4), pages 1309-1339.
    8. Tatiana Kirsanova & Campbell Leith & Simon Wren‐Lewis, 2009. "Monetary and Fiscal Policy Interaction: The Current Consensus Assignment in the Light of Recent Developments," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 119(541), pages 482-496, November.
    9. Himmels, Christoph & Kirsanova, Tatiana, 2013. "Escaping expectation traps: How much commitment is required?," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 37(3), pages 649-665.
    10. Christoph Himmels & Tatiana Kirsanova, 2011. "Expectations Traps and Monetary Policy with Limited Commitment," Discussion Papers 1102, University of Exeter, Department of Economics.
    11. Fragetta, Matteo & Kirsanova, Tatiana, 2010. "Strategic monetary and fiscal policy interactions: An empirical investigation," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 54(7), pages 855-879, October.
    12. Henrik Jensen, 2002. "Targeting Nominal Income Growth or Inflation?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(4), pages 928-956, September.
    13. Gersbach, Hans & Hahn, Volker, 2014. "Inflation forecast contracts," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 26-40.
    14. Leeper, E.M. & Leith, C., 2016. "Understanding Inflation as a Joint Monetary–Fiscal Phenomenon," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & Harald Uhlig (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 2305-2415, Elsevier.
    15. S. Gnocchi, 2007. "Discretionary Fiscal Policy and Optimal Monetary Policy in a Currency Area," Working Papers 602, Dipartimento Scienze Economiche, Universita' di Bologna.
    16. Oliver Grimm & Stefan Ried, 2007. "Macroeconomic Policy in a Heterogeneous Monetary Union," CER-ETH Economics working paper series 07/67, CER-ETH - Center of Economic Research (CER-ETH) at ETH Zurich.
    17. Canzoneri, Matthew & Cumby, Robert & Diba, Behzad, 2010. "The Interaction Between Monetary and Fiscal Policy," Handbook of Monetary Economics, in: Benjamin M. Friedman & Michael Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Monetary Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 17, pages 935-999, Elsevier.
    18. Philip Arestis & Alexander Mihailov, 2011. "Classifying Monetary Economics: Fields And Methods From Past To Future," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(4), pages 769-800, September.
    19. Kirsanova, Tatiana & Vines, David & Wren-Lewis, Simon, 2007. "When Inflation Persistence Really Matters: Two examples," Kiel Working Papers 1351, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    20. Vieira, Paulo & Machado, Celsa & Ribeiro, Ana Paula, 2018. "Optimal discretionary monetary and fiscal policies in a country-size heterogeneous monetary union," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 154-174.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    WP; central bank; government spending; myopic government;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E52 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Monetary Policy
    • E60 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - General
    • E61 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Policy Objectives; Policy Designs and Consistency; Policy Coordination
    • E63 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Comparative or Joint Analysis of Fiscal and Monetary Policy; Stabilization; Treasury Policy

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:imf:imfwpa:2008/164. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Akshay Modi (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/imfffus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.