In this paper we study optimal monetary and fiscal policies, and the welfare costs of inflation, within the Lagos and Wright (2005) framework. Monetary equilibria may be inefficient without fiscal policy tools due to bargaining frictions. We show that subsidies in decentralized markets can be implemented to alleviate underproduction, while money is still essential. Deviations from the Friedman rule may be large, and having fiscal and monetary policies in place results in considerable welfare gains. When fiscal policies are held constant, the welfare costs of increasing inflation may be as high as 8% of lifetime consumption. When lump sum monetary transfers are not available, a positive production subsidy may be inflationary and welfare reducing. However, sales taxes in the decentralized market and production taxes in the centralized market may increase welfare. The optimality of the Friedman rule in this case depends crucially on the bargaining power of the buyer, and equilibria are not first best.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
Publisher Info
Paper provided by Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis in its series Working Papers with number
2008-015.
References listed on IDEAS 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.:
Joydeep Bhattacharya & Joseph H. Haslag & Antoine Martin, 2005.
"Heterogeneity, Redistribution, And The Friedman Rule,"
International Economic Review,
Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 46(2), pages 437-454, 05.
[Downloadable!] (restricted)
Other versions: