Policy rules, information and fiscal effects in a "Ricardian" model

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Policy rules, information and fiscal effects in a "Ricardian" model

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Eric M. Leeper

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Eric Leeper

Abstract

According to conventional wisdom, if deficits are inflationary then current deficits should predict subsequent movements in money growth. This paper USES a general equilibrium model fit to data to: (1) explore the policy behavior underlying this accepted viewpoint; (2) examine alternative equilibrium deficit policies ranging from an exclusive reliance on direct lump-sum taxes to a mix of direct and inflation taxes; and (3) evaluate the empirical trade-offs implied by the various financing schemes. The results suggest that reduced-form analyses of whether "deficits matter" can lead to seriously misleading conclusions by mistakenly attributing fiscal effects to monetary policy. ; I demonstrate that simple monetary and tax policy rules and plausible assumptions about when private agents learn of fiscal actions can produce a classical economy whose nominal equilibrium depends on the process for lumpsum taxes and whose time series contradict the view that monetized deficits predict inflation. I assess the fit of versions of the model to U.S. data and reinterpret existing reduced-form studies in light of the results.

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Paper provided by Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.) in its series International Finance Discussion Papers with number 360.

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Date of creation: 1989
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Handle: RePEc:fip:fedgif:360

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References listed on IDEAS
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King, Robert G. & Plosser, Charles I., 1985. "Money, deficits, and inflation," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 22(1), pages 147-195, January. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
Dwyer, Gerald P, Jr, 1982. "Inflation and Government Deficits," Economic Inquiry, Oxford University Press, vol. 20(3), pages 315-29, July.
Rao Aiyagari, S. & Gertler, Mark, 1985. "The backing of government bonds and monetarism," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 16(1), pages 19-44, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
Blanchard, Olivier Jean & Kahn, Charles M, 1980. "The Solution of Linear Difference Models under Rational Expectations," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 48(5), pages 1305-11, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
Evans, Paul, 1987. "Interest Rates and Expected Future Budget Deficits in the United States," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 95(1), pages 34-58, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)

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(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

Eric M. Leeper, 2003. "Fiscal Policy and Inflation: Pondering the Imponderables," NBER Working Papers 9506, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
Hess Chung & Eric M. Leeper, 2007. "What Has Financed Government Debt?," NBER Working Papers 13425, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
Other versions:
- Hess Chung & Eric Leeper, 2007. "What Has Financed Government Debt?," Caepr Working Papers 2007-015, Center for Applied Economics and Policy Research, Economics Department, Indiana University Bloomington. [Downloadable!]
Srobona Mitra, 2007. "Is the Quantity of Government Debt a Constraint for Monetary Policy?," IMF Working Papers 07/62, International Monetary Fund. [Downloadable!]
Michael Woodford, 2001. "Fiscal Requirements for Price Stability," NBER Working Papers 8072, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
Other versions:
- Woodford, Michael, 2001. "Fiscal Requirements for Price Stability," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 33(3), pages 669-728, August.
Luca Sala, 2004. "The Fiscal Theory of the Price Level: Identifying Restrictions and Empirical Evidence," Working Papers 257, IGIER (Innocenzo Gasparini Institute for Economic Research), Bocconi University. [Downloadable!]
Eric M. Leeper, 1990. "The dynamics of interest rate and tax rules in a stochastic model," International Finance Discussion Papers 375, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.). [Downloadable!]

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