Fiscal Rules and Discretion Under Persistent Shocks

This paper studies the optimal level of discretion in policymaking. We consider a fiscal policy model where the government has time‐inconsistent preferences with a present bias toward public spending. The government chooses a fiscal rule to trade off its desire to commit to not overspend against its desire to have flexibility to react to privately observed shocks to the value of spending. We analyze the optimal fiscal rule when the shocks are persistent. Unlike under independent and identically distributed shocks, we show that the ex ante optimal rule is not sequentially optimal, as it provides dynamic incentives. The ex ante optimal rule exhibits history dependence, with high shocks leading to an erosion of future fiscal discipline compared to low shocks, which lead to the reinstatement of discipline. The implied policy distortions oscillate over time given a sequence of high shocks, and can force the government to accumulate maximal debt and become immiserated in the long run.     

PUBLIC DEBT UNDER LIMITED PRIVATE CREDIT

There is a conventional wisdom in economics that public debt can serve as a substitute for private credit if private borrowing is limited. The purpose of this paper is to show that, while a government could in principle use such a policy to fully relax borrowing limits, this is not generally optimal. In our economy, agents invest in a short‐term asset, a long‐term asset, and government bonds. Agents are subject to idiosyncratic liquidity shocks prior to the maturity of the long‐term asset. We show that a high public debt policy fully relaxes private borrowing limits and is suboptimal. This is because agents expecting such a policy respond by investing less than is socially optimal in the short asset which can protect them in the event of a liquidity shock. The optimal policy is more constrained and it induces a wedge between the technological rate of return on the long asset and the rate of return on bonds. In such a regime, agents subject to liquidity shocks are also borrowing constrained, and this expectation of being borrowing constrained induces them to invest the optimal level in the short asset.     

Time Consistency of Fiscal and Monetary Policy: A Solution

This paper demonstrates how time consistency of the Ramsey policy—the optimal fiscal and monetary policy under commitment—can be achieved. Each government should leave its successor with a unique maturity structure for nominal and indexed debt, such that the marginal benefit of a surprise inflation exactly balances the marginal cost. Unlike in earlier papers on the topic, the result holds for quite general Ramsey policies, including time‐varying polices with positive inflation and positive nominal interest rates. We compare our results with those in Persson, Persson, and Svensson (1987), Calvo and Obstfeld (1990), and Alvarez, Kehoe, and Neumeyer (2004).     

THE MYSTERY OF THE PRINTING PRESS: MONETARY POLICY AND SELF‐FULFILLING DEBT CRISES

We study the conditions under which unconventional (balance sheet) monetary policy can rule out self‐fulfilling sovereign default in a model with optimizing but discretionary fiscal and monetary policymakers. When purchasing sovereign debt, the central bank effectively swaps risky government paper for monetary liabilities only exposed to inflation risk, thus yielding a lower interest rate. As central bank purchases reduce the (ex ante) costs of debt, we characterize a critical threshold beyond which, absent fundamental fiscal stress, the government strictly prefers primary surplus adjustment to default. Because default may still occur for fundamental reasons, however, the central bank faces the risk of losses on sovereign debt holdings, which may generate inefficient inflation. We show that these losses do not necessarily undermine the credibility of a backstop, nor the monetary authorities' ability to pursue its inflation objectives. Backstops are credible if either the central bank enjoys fiscal backing or fiscal authorities are sufficiently averse to inflation. (JEL: E58, E63, H63)     

A POLITICAL ECONOMY THEORY OF FISCAL POLICY AND UNEMPLOYMENT

This paper presents a political economy theory of fiscal policy and unemployment. The underlying economy is one in which unemployment can arise but can be mitigated by tax cuts and increases in public production. Such policies are fiscally costly, but can be financed by issuing government debt. Policy decisions are made by a legislature consisting of representatives from different political districts. With the available policies, it is possible for the government to completely eliminate unemployment in the long run. However, with political decision making, the economy always has unemployment. Unemployment is higher when the private sector experiences negative shocks. When these shocks occur, the government employs debt‐financed fiscal stimulus plans which involve both tax cuts and public production increases. When the private sector is healthy, the government contracts debt until it reaches a floor level. Unemployment levels are weakly increasing in the economy's debt level, strictly so when the private sector experiences negative shocks. Conditional on the level of workers employed, the mix of public and private output is distorted.     

OPTIMAL MONETARY POLICY AND FINANCIAL STABILITY IN A NON‐RICARDIAN ECONOMY

I present a model with discontinuous asset‐market participation (DAMP), where all agents are non‐Ricardian, and where heterogeneity among market participants implies financial‐wealth effects on aggregate consumption. The implied welfare criterion shows that financial stability arises as an additional and independent target, besides inflation and output stability. Evaluation of optimal policy under discretion and commitment reveals that price stability may no longer be optimal, even absent inefficient supply shocks: some fluctuations in output and inflation may be optimal as long as they reduce financial instability. Ignoring the heterogeneity among market participants may lead monetary policy to induce substantially higher welfare losses.     

A Game–Theoretic View of the Fiscal Theory of the Price Level

The goal of this paper is to probe the validity of the fiscal theory of the price level by modelling explicitly the market structure in which households and the government make their decisions. I describe the economy as a game, and I am thus able to state precisely the consequences of actions that are out of the equilibrium path. I show that there exist government strategies that lead to a version of the fiscal theory, in which the price level is determined by fiscal variables alone. These strategies are however more complex than the simple budgetary rules usually associated with the fiscal theory, and the government budget constraint cannot be merely viewed as an equilibrium condition.     

通胀预期与央行货币政策有效性

不同通胀预期状态下货币政策有效性有何差异？本文试图采用Logistic平滑转换结构向量自回归模型来回答上述问题。我们以央行未来物价预期指数来度量通胀预期,基本结论如下:(1)短期来看,在低通胀预期状态下,货币政策对促进经济增长和增加就业相对更有效;(2)而对于通货膨胀影响方面,在高通胀预期状态下,货币政策对物价的冲击相对更快显现出来,而在低通胀预期状态时,货币冲击对物价水平的影响存在通货膨胀惊吓现象,即初期表现为低通胀,甚至通货紧缩,然后显现正向效应,在大约11期之后正向效应达到最大,且对物价影响力度往往大于高通胀预期状态下的货币政策冲击效应。     

石油价格冲击与经济波动风险最小化的货币供应机制分析

本文通过构建一个包含石油价格冲击的DSGE模型,基于经济波动风险的最小化,研究了石油价格冲击对中国货币供应机制的影响。在模型结构参数贝叶斯估计的基础上,通过货币政策前沿的比较分析,回答了中国货币供应机制是否应该对石油价格冲击做出反应以及应该如何反应的政策问题。研究结果表明,中国当前的货币供应机制并没有对石油价格冲击做出显著的反应,但为了减小经济波动的风险,中国的货币供应机制在对产出增长和通货膨胀反应的同时,对石油价格冲击做出反应具有必要性。     

SOVEREIGN DEBT SUSTAINABILITY IN ADVANCED ECONOMIES

We develop a measure of maximum sustainable government debt for advanced economies. How much investors are willing to lend to a country's government depends on the country's expected primary surplus, the level and volatility of its rate of growth, and how much debt the government expects to be able to raise in the future for the purpose of servicing the debt it seeks to raise today. We provide a simple formula that computes a country's maximum sustainable debt (MSD) as a function of four easy‐to‐estimate parameters. We further compute a country's theoretical probability of default (PD) as a function of its debt‐to‐GDP ratio. We finally calibrate our measures for 23 OECD countries and test the relation between sovereign yield spreads and our theoretical PD at prevailing debt levels. We find it to be strongly statistically significant.     

我国通货膨胀路径的对称性和波动性分析

我国价格水平变化具有一定程度的对称性,但在通货膨胀和通货紧缩阶段具有不同的波动性。影响我国价格水平变化的重要原因来自消费需求,目前我国价格水平变化具有有效需求驱动特性。紧缩货币政策有效地抑制了通货膨胀,但稳健货币政策对缓解通货紧缩作用微弱,同时积极财政政策也没有明显地影响价格水平,因此缓解通货紧缩还需要更为积极的名义扩张。     

粘性信息、通货膨胀惯性与货币政策效应——兼论宏观经济变量的共变性

本文通过构建一个企业获取信息存在粘性的DSGE模型,分析了信息当期宣布和提前宣布或预期到信息两种情况下,发生政府支出和货币供应2种冲击时,宏观经济变量的响应,进而研究主要变量间的共变性与先行滞后关系。结果表明,在基准信息粘性条件下,信息即期宣布,面对政府支出和货币供应冲击,通货膨胀的滞后性存在差异,货币供应冲击发生后的8个季度,通货膨胀达到最大,政府支出6个季度,通货膨胀达到最大,通货膨胀在这2种冲击下均存在惯性。名义利率能够对这2种冲击做出即期反应。信息提前宣布时,通货膨胀和名义利率能够做出即期反应,到信息实现时,在充分吸收信息基础上,反应达到最大,然后呈非连续性快速恢复。从频域和时域角度看,名义利率和通货膨胀2个变量均滞后于实际货币供应,因此,当前可以采用即期增加政府支出的积极财政政策和提前宣布增加货币供应的货币政策相结合的组合政策,达到"稳增长"的目标。     

INFLATION STABILIZATION AND WELFARE: THE CASE OF A DISTORTED STEADY STATE

This paper considers the appropriate stabilization objectives for monetary policy in a micro‐founded model with staggered price‐setting. Rotemberg and Woodford (1997) and Woodford (2002) have shown that under certain conditions, a local approximation to the expected utility of the representative household in a model of this kind is related inversely to the expected discounted value of a conventional quadratic loss function, in which each period's loss is a weighted average of squared deviations of inflation and an output gap measure from their optimal values (zero). However, those derivations rely on an assumption of the existence of an output or employment subsidy that offsets the distortion due to the market power of monopolistically competitive price‐setters, so that the steady state under a zero‐inflation policy involves an efficient level of output. Here we show how to dispense with this unappealing assumption, so that a valid linear‐quadratic approximation to the optimal policy problem is possible even when the steady state is distorted to an arbitrary extent (allowing for tax distortions as well as market power), and when, as a consequence, it is necessary to take account of the effects of stabilization policy on the average level of output. We again obtain a welfare‐theoretic loss function that involves both inflation and an appropriately defined output gap, though the degree of distortion of the steady state affects both the weights on the two stabilization objectives and the definition of the welfare‐relevant output gap. In the light of these results, we reconsider the conditions under which complete price stability is optimal, and find that they are more restrictive in the case of a distorted steady state. We also consider the conditions under which pure randomization of monetary policy can be welfare‐improving, and find that this is possible in the case of a sufficiently distorted steady state, though the parameter values required are probably not empirically realistic. (JEL: D61, E52, E61)     

Demand Fluctuations in the Ready‐Mix Concrete Industry

I investigate the role of demand shocks in the ready‐mix concrete industry. Using Census data on more than 15,000 plants, I estimate a model of investment and entry in oligopolistic markets. These estimates are used to simulate the effect of eliminating short‐term local demand changes. A policy of smoothing the volatility of demand has a market expansion effect: The model predicts a 39% increase in the number of plants in the industry. Since bigger markets have both more plants and larger plants, a demand‐smoothing fiscal policy would increase the share of large plants by 20%. Finally, the policy of smoothing demand reduces entry and exit by 25%, but has no effect on the rate at which firms change their size.     

信息不对称条件下激励相容的输配电价模型研究

政府与输配电企业之间存在着信息不对称,通过引入价格、输电量和转移支付三个政策工具,政府可以设计一套激励相容机制以诱使企业诚实申报成本。在激励相容机制基础上建立的输配电企业管制定价模型,不仅能维护消费者的利益,而且还能确保输配电企业不亏损。特别是当政府将输配电企业利润与消费者剩余视为同等重要时,输配电价将等于边际成本,资源将得到最优配置,此时输配电企业也将获得最大的利润。模型为我国输配电定价形成机制提供了理论与政策依据。     

Supply Policies in an Open Economy with Centralized Wage Setting

Abstract. In this paper we examine the effectiveness of a fiscal policy based on government subsidies to firms in an open economy, characterized by the “strategic” interaction of government and unions. Before developing the theoretical model, some evidence about government reaction functions for selected OECD countries is presented. The main theoretical results can be summed up as follows. A fiscal policy based on a tax-financed increase in government transfers to firms makes the country more competitive internationally, but reduces employment. Only when the increase in government transfers to firms is financed by the public debt is the fiscal policy able to achieve its two-fold aim of greater competitiveness and a higher level of employment.     

需求不确定情况下绿色产品消费过程中政府的最优补贴

从化解绿色技术创新的环境外部效应出发，对绿色产品消费过程中政府如何给购买者提供补贴问题进行了研究。假定绿色产品的市场需求存在不确定性，讨论了需求函数分别为加法形式与乘积形式时，企业如何确定产品的价格和销量，以及政府如何选择补贴方式的策略问题。研究认为：给定需求函数的具体形式，政府提供的最优补贴或者价格折扣、企业最优产量以及政府实际补贴支出随着政府期望实现销售目标的提高而增加，随着市场风险的增加而增加。从政府补贴支出最小化角度来看，固定额度补贴方式为政府的最优选择。给定政府补贴支出，从实现企业产量最大化角度来看，价格折扣方式为政府的最优选择。对消费者来讲，政府应用价格折扣方式能够降低消费者的购买支出，提高消费者获得的福利剩余。     

UNINSURED COUNTERCYCLICAL RISK: AN AGGREGATION RESULT AND APPLICATION TO OPTIMAL MONETARY POLICY

We consider an incomplete markets economy with capital accumulation and endogenous labor supply. Individuals face countercyclical idiosyncratic labor and asset risk. We derive conditions under which the aggregate allocations and price system can be found by solving a representative agent problem. This result is applied to analyze the properties of an optimal monetary policy in a New Keynesian economy with uninsured countercyclical individual risk. The optimal monetary policy that emerges from our incomplete markets economy is the same as the optimal monetary policy in a representative agent model with preference shocks. When price rigidity is the only friction the optimal monetary policy calls for stabilizing the inflation rate at zero.     

房价波动、货币政策与中国社会福利损失

本文建立并采用贝叶斯方法估计了一个包含普通消费品部门与房地产部门的多部门NKMP-DSGE模型,运用脉冲响应函数与贝叶斯冲击分解研究了外生冲击对于产出、通胀以及房价膨胀的影响。研究表明,宽松的货币政策在推动我国房价上涨中扮演了主要作用。基于Woodford^[1]的方法,本文通过政策试验分析了不同政策机制的社会福利损失,结果发现同时对房地产供给以及房价做出反应的政策机制具有相对较小的社会福利损失,因此在房地产市场调控中同时增加房地产供给和抑制房价过快上涨可能具有更好的效果。最后,基于我国现实数据,本文估算了通胀与房价膨胀背景下中国真实的社会福利损失,估算的结果对于进一步考察通胀与房价膨胀背景下中国最优货币政策具有重要的现实意义。