IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/iecrev/v54y2013i3p1031-1055.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Central Bank Independence And The Monetary Instrument Problem

Author

Listed:
  • STEFAN NIEMANN
  • PAUL PICHLER
  • GERHARD SORGER

Abstract

We study the monetary instrument problem in a dynamic noncooperative game between separate, discretionary, fiscal and monetary policy makers. We show that monetary instruments are equivalent only if the policy makers' objectives are perfectly aligned; otherwise an instrument problem exists. When the central bank is benevolent while the fiscal authority is short‐sighted relative to the private sector, excessive public spending and debt emerge under a money growth policy but not under an interest rate policy. Despite this property, the interest rate is not necessarily the optimal instrument.

Suggested Citation

  • Stefan Niemann & Paul Pichler & Gerhard Sorger, 2013. "Central Bank Independence And The Monetary Instrument Problem," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 54(3), pages 1031-1055, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:iecrev:v:54:y:2013:i:3:p:1031-1055
    DOI: 10.1111/iere.12027
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/iere.12027
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/iere.12027?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. 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.
    2. 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.
    3. Carlstrom, Charles T. & Fuerst, Timothy S., 1995. "Interest rate rules vs. money growth rules a welfare comparison in a cash-in-advance economy," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 36(2), pages 247-267, November.
    4. Javier Diaz-Gimenez & Giorgia Giovannetti & Ramon Marimon & Pedro Teles, 2008. "Nominal Debt as a Burden on Monetary Policy," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 11(3), pages 493-514, July.
    5. Schmitt-Grohe, Stephanie & Uribe, Martin, 2004. "Optimal fiscal and monetary policy under sticky prices," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 114(2), pages 198-230, February.
    6. Fernando Martin, 2009. "A Positive Theory of Government Debt," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 12(4), pages 608-631, October.
    7. Martin, Fernando M., 2011. "On the joint determination of fiscal and monetary policy," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(2), pages 132-145, March.
    8. Ellison, Martin & Rankin, Neil, 2007. "Optimal monetary policy when lump-sum taxes are unavailable: A reconsideration of the outcomes under commitment and discretion," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 219-243, January.
    9. Lucas, Robert Jr. & Stokey, Nancy L., 1983. "Optimal fiscal and monetary policy in an economy without capital," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 12(1), pages 55-93.
    10. Robert G. King & Alexander L. Wolman, 2004. "Monetary Discretion, Pricing Complementarity, and Dynamic Multiple Equilibria," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 119(4), pages 1513-1553.
    11. Schmitt-Grohe, Stephanie & Uribe, Martin, 2004. "Optimal fiscal and monetary policy under imperfect competition," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 26(2), pages 183-209, June.
    12. Stefania Albanesi & V. V. Chari & Lawrence J. Christiano, 2003. "Expectation Traps and Monetary Policy," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 70(4), pages 715-741.
    13. Niemann, Stefan, 2011. "Dynamic monetary–fiscal interactions and the role of monetary conservatism," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(3), pages 234-247.
    14. Adam, Klaus & Billi, Roberto M., 2007. "Discretionary monetary policy and the zero lower bound on nominal interest rates," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(3), pages 728-752, April.
    15. Andreas Schabert, 2006. "Central Bank Instruments, Fiscal Policy Regimes, and the Requirements for Equilibrium Determinacy," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 9(4), pages 742-762, October.
    16. Salvador Ortigueira, 2006. "Markov-Perfect Optimal Taxation," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 9(1), pages 153-178, January.
    17. Adam, Klaus & Billi, Roberto M., 2008. "Monetary conservatism and fiscal policy," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(8), pages 1376-1388, November.
    18. Michael Dotsey & Andreas Hornstein, 2008. "On the implementation of Markov-perfect interest rate and money supply rules: global and local uniqueness," Working Papers 08-30, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.
    19. William Poole, 1969. "Optimal choice of monetary policy instruments in a simple stochastic macro model," Special Studies Papers 2, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    20. McCallum, Bennett T., 1981. "Price level determinacy with an interest rate policy rule and rational expectations," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 8(3), pages 319-329.
    21. Collard, Fabrice & Dellas, Harris, 2005. "Poole in the New Keynesian model," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 49(4), pages 887-907, May.
    22. Schabert, Andreas, 2010. "Monetary policy under a fiscal theory of sovereign default," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 145(2), pages 860-868, March.
    23. Nicolini, Juan Pablo, 1998. "More on the time consistency of monetary policy," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(2), pages 333-350, April.
    24. Thomas F. Cooley & Gary D. Hansen, 1991. "The welfare costs of moderate inflations," Proceedings, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, pages 483-518.
    25. Malley, Jim & Philippopoulos, Apostolis & Woitek, Ulrich, 2007. "Electoral uncertainty, fiscal policy and macroeconomic fluctuations," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 31(3), pages 1051-1080, March.
    26. Chari, V V & Christiano, Lawrence J & Kehoe, Patrick J, 1991. "Optimal Fiscal and Monetary Policy: Some Recent Results," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 23(3), pages 519-539, August.
    27. Niemann, S & Pichler, P & Sorger, G, 2009. "Inflation dynamics under optimal discretionary fiscal and monetary policies," Economics Discussion Papers 2898, University of Essex, Department of Economics.
    28. Svensson, Lars E O, 1985. "Money and Asset Prices in a Cash-in-Advance Economy," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 93(5), pages 919-944, October.
    29. Sargent, Thomas J & Wallace, Neil, 1975. ""Rational" Expectations, the Optimal Monetary Instrument, and the Optimal Money Supply Rule," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 83(2), pages 241-254, April.
    30. Judd, Kenneth L., 1992. "Projection methods for solving aggregate growth models," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 58(2), pages 410-452, December.
    31. Siu, Henry E., 2004. "Optimal fiscal and monetary policy with sticky prices," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(3), pages 575-607, April.
    32. William Poole, 1970. "Optimal Choice of Monetary Policy Instruments in a Simple Stochastic Macro Model," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 84(2), pages 197-216.
    33. Adam, Klaus & Billi, Roberto M., 2008. "Monetary conservatism and fiscal policy," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(8), pages 1376-1388, November.
    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. Masciandaro, Donato & Romelli, Davide, 2015. "Ups and downs of central bank independence from the Great Inflation to the Great Recession: theory, institutions and empirics," Financial History Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 22(3), pages 259-289, December.
    2. Di Bartolomeo, Giovanni & Saltari, Enrico & Semmler, Willi, 2019. "The effects of political short-termism on transitions induced by pollution regulations," EconStor Preprints 200143, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.
    3. Enrico Saltari & Willi Semmler & Giovanni Di Bartolomeo, 2022. "A Nash Equilibrium for Differential Games with Moving-Horizon Strategies," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 60(3), pages 1041-1054, October.
    4. Donato Masciandaro & Davide Romelli, 2019. "Behavioral Monetary Policymaking: Economics, Political Economy and Psychology," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Behavioral Finance The Coming of Age, chapter 9, pages 285-329, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    5. Saungweme, Talknice & Odhiambo, Nicholas M, 2021. "Does public debt granger-cause inflation? A multivariate analysis," Working Papers 28342, University of South Africa, Department of Economics.
    6. D. Masciandaro, 2019. "What Bird Is That? Central Banking And Monetary Policy In The Last Forty Years," BAFFI CAREFIN Working Papers 19127, BAFFI CAREFIN, Centre for Applied Research on International Markets Banking Finance and Regulation, Universita' Bocconi, Milano, Italy.
    7. Pichler, Paul, 2011. "Solving the multi-country Real Business Cycle model using a monomial rule Galerkin method," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 35(2), pages 240-251, February.
    8. Donato Masciandaro & Davide Romelli, 2018. "To Be or not to Be a Euro Country? The Behavioural Political Economics of Currency Unions," BAFFI CAREFIN Working Papers 1883, BAFFI CAREFIN, Centre for Applied Research on International Markets Banking Finance and Regulation, Universita' Bocconi, Milano, Italy.
    9. Fernando M. Martin, 2020. "Fiscal Dominance," Working Papers 2020-040, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, revised 26 Aug 2023.
    10. Niemann, Stefan & Pichler, Paul, 2011. "Optimal fiscal and monetary policies in the face of rare disasters," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 55(1), pages 75-92, January.
    11. Saungweme, Talknice & Odhiambo, Nicholas M., 2022. "Does Public Debt Granger-Cause Inflation in Tanzania? A Multivariate Analysis," Economia Internazionale / International Economics, Camera di Commercio Industria Artigianato Agricoltura di Genova, vol. 75(1), pages 75-100.

    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. Martin, Fernando M., 2015. "Debt, inflation and central bank independence," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 129-150.
    2. Niemann, Stefan & Pichler, Paul & Sorger, Gerhard, 2013. "Public debt, discretionary policy, and inflation persistence," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 37(6), pages 1097-1109.
    3. Niemann, Stefan & Pichler, Paul, 2011. "Optimal fiscal and monetary policies in the face of rare disasters," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 55(1), pages 75-92, January.
    4. Niemann, S & Pichler, P & Sorger, G, 2009. "Inflation dynamics under optimal discretionary fiscal and monetary policies," Economics Discussion Papers 2898, University of Essex, Department of Economics.
    5. Niemann, Stefan, 2011. "Dynamic monetary–fiscal interactions and the role of monetary conservatism," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(3), pages 234-247.
    6. Niemann, S & Pichler, P & Sorger, G, 2008. "Optimal Fiscal and Monetary Policy Without Commitment," Economics Discussion Papers 2897, University of Essex, Department of Economics.
    7. 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.
    8. Miller, David S., 2016. "Commitment versus discretion in a political economy model of fiscal and monetary policy interaction," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 17-29.
    9. Marco Bassetto & Thomas J. Sargent, 2020. "Shotgun Wedding: Fiscal and Monetary Policy," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 12(1), pages 659-690, August.
    10. Fernando M. Martin, 2013. "Government Policy In Monetary Economies," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 54(1), pages 185-217, February.
    11. Antoine Camous & Dmitry Matveev, 2023. "The Central Bank Strikes Back! Credibility of Monetary Policy under Fiscal Influence," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 133(649), pages 1-29.
    12. Roettger, Joost, 2019. "Discretionary monetary and fiscal policy with endogenous sovereign risk," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 105(C), pages 44-66.
    13. Adam, Klaus & Billi, Roberto M., 2014. "Distortionary fiscal policy and monetary policy goals," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 122(1), pages 1-6.
    14. Mihailov, Alexander & Ullrich, Katrin, 2007. "Independence and Accountability of Monetary and Fiscal Policy Committees," ZEW Discussion Papers 07-044, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    15. 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.
    16. Andreas Schabert, 2005. "Discretionary Policy, Multiple Equilibria, and Monetary Instruments," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 05-098/2, Tinbergen Institute.
    17. Salvador Ortigueira & Joana Pereira, 2007. "Markov-Perfect Optimal Fiscal Policy: The Case of Unbalanced Budgets," Economics Working Papers ECO2007/41, European University Institute.
    18. Leeper, Eric M. & Leith, Campbell & Liu, Ding, 2021. "Optimal Time-Consistent Monetary, Fiscal and Debt Maturity Policy," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 600-617.
    19. D. Masciandaro, 2019. "What Bird Is That? Central Banking And Monetary Policy In The Last Forty Years," BAFFI CAREFIN Working Papers 19127, BAFFI CAREFIN, Centre for Applied Research on International Markets Banking Finance and Regulation, Universita' Bocconi, Milano, Italy.
    20. Salvador Ortigueira & Joana Pereira, 2016. "Lack of Commitment, Retroactive Tax Changes, and Macroeconomic Instability," Working Papers WP2016-05, University of Miami, Department of Economics.

    More about this item

    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:wly:iecrev:v:54:y:2013:i:3:p:1031-1055. 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/deupaus.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.