IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/2270.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Optimal Collection of Seigniorage: Theory and Evidence

Author

Listed:
  • N. Gregory Mankiw

Abstract

This paper presents and tests a positive theory of monetary and fiscal policy. The government chooses the rates of taxation and inflation to minimize the present value of the social cost of raising revenue given exogenous expenditure and an intertemporal budget constraint. The theory implies that nominal interest rates and inflation are random walks. It also implies that nominal interest rates and inflation move together with tax rates. United States data from 1952 to 1985 provide some support for the theory.

Suggested Citation

  • N. Gregory Mankiw, 1987. "The Optimal Collection of Seigniorage: Theory and Evidence," NBER Working Papers 2270, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:2270
    Note: ME EFG PE
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w2270.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hall, Robert E, 1978. "Stochastic Implications of the Life Cycle-Permanent Income Hypothesis: Theory and Evidence," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 86(6), pages 971-987, December.
    2. Plosser, Charles I. & Schwert*, G. William, 1978. "Money, income, and sunspots: Measuring economic relationships and the effects of differencing," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 4(4), pages 637-660, November.
    3. Kimbrough, Kent P., 1986. "The optimum quantity of money rule in the theory of public finance," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(3), pages 277-284, November.
    4. Thomas J. Sargent, 1982. "The Ends of Four Big Inflations," NBER Chapters, in: Inflation: Causes and Effects, pages 41-98, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Barro, Robert J & Sahasakul, Chaipat, 1983. "Measuring the Average Marginal Tax Rate from the Individual Income Tax," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 56(4), pages 419-452, October.
    6. N. Gregory Mankiw & Jeffrey A. Miron, 1986. "The Changing Behavior of the Term Structure of Interest Rates," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 101(2), pages 211-228.
    7. Barro, Robert J. & Sahasakul, Chaipat, 1983. "Measuring the Average Marginal Tax Rates from Social Security and the Individual Income Tax," Working Papers 29, The University of Chicago Booth School of Business, George J. Stigler Center for the Study of the Economy and the State.
    8. McCallum, Bennett T., 1986. "Some issues concerning interest rate pegging, price level determinacy, and the real bills doctrine," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(1), pages 135-160, January.
    9. Arthur M. Okun, 1975. "Inflation: Its Mechanics and Welfare Costs," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 6(2), pages 351-402.
    10. 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.
    11. Goodfriend, Marvin, 1987. "Interest rate smoothing and price level trend-stationarity," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(3), pages 335-348, May.
    12. Hansen, Lars Peter & Singleton, Kenneth J, 1983. "Stochastic Consumption, Risk Aversion, and the Temporal Behavior of Asset Returns," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 91(2), pages 249-265, April.
    13. Robert E. Hall, 1982. "Inflation: Causes and Effects," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number hall82-1, March.
    14. Granger, C. W. J. & Newbold, P., 1974. "Spurious regressions in econometrics," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 2(2), pages 111-120, July.
    15. Lucas, Robert Jr., 1986. "Principles of fiscal and monetary policy," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(1), pages 117-134, January.
    16. Tobin, James, 1986. " On the Welfare Macroeconomics of Government Financial Policy," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 88(1), pages 9-24.
    17. N. Gregory Mankiw & Julio J. Rotemberg & Lawrence H. Summers, 1985. "Intertemporal Substitution in Macroeconomics," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 100(1), pages 225-251.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Casey B. Mulligan, 2002. "Capital, Interest, and Aggregate Intertemporal Substitution," NBER Working Papers 9373, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Akhand Akhtar Hossain, 2009. "Central Banking and Monetary Policy in the Asia-Pacific," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 12777.
    3. Attanasio, Orazio P & Browning, Martin, 1995. "Consumption over the Life Cycle and over the Business Cycle," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(5), pages 1118-1137, December.
    4. Guvenen, Fatih, 2006. "Reconciling conflicting evidence on the elasticity of intertemporal substitution: A macroeconomic perspective," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(7), pages 1451-1472, October.
    5. David Staines, 2023. "Stochastic Equilibrium the Lucas Critique and Keynesian Economics," Papers 2312.16214, arXiv.org.
    6. Song Han & Casey B. Mulligan, 2008. "Inflation and the size of government," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, vol. 90(May), pages 245-267.
    7. Shiller, Robert J. & Huston McCulloch, J., 1990. "The term structure of interest rates," Handbook of Monetary Economics, in: B. M. Friedman & F. H. Hahn (ed.), Handbook of Monetary Economics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 13, pages 627-722, Elsevier.
    8. M. Ishaq Nadiri, 1986. "Price Inertia and Inflation: Evidence and Theoretical Rationale," NBER Working Papers 2022, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Laurence J. Kotlikoff & Ariél Pakes, 1988. "Looking for the News in the Noise. Additional Stochastic Implications of Optimal Consumption Choise," Annals of Economics and Statistics, GENES, issue 9, pages 29-46.
    10. H. Youn Kim & José Alberto Molina & Ka Kei Gary Wong, 2022. "Durable Goods and Consumer Behavior with Liquidity Constraints: Evidence from Norway," Boston College Working Papers in Economics 1047, Boston College Department of Economics.
    11. Alan Viard, 1997. "How forecastable is consumption growth? New evidence on the Hall random walk hypothesis," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 29(11), pages 1435-1446.
    12. Casey B. Mulligan, 1999. "Substitution over Time: Another Look at Life-Cycle Labor Supply," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1998, volume 13, pages 75-152, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Masao Ogaki & Carmen M. Reinhart, 1998. "Measuring Intertemporal Substitution: The Role of Durable Goods," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 106(5), pages 1078-1098, October.
    14. Pedersen, Karsten N., 1991. "Intertemporal substitution in consumption : evidence for some high- and middle-income countries," Policy Research Working Paper Series 641, The World Bank.
    15. Kotlikoff, Laurence J, 1984. "Taxation and Savings: A Neoclassical Perspective," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 22(4), pages 1576-1629, December.
    16. Bennett T. McCallum, 1993. "Unit roots in macroeconomic time series: some critical issues," Economic Quarterly, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, issue Spr, pages 13-44.
    17. N. Gregory Mankiw & Matthew D. Shapiro, 1984. "Risk and Return: Consumption versus Market Beta," NBER Working Papers 1399, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. Dr. Belkacem Laabas , Dr. Weshah Razzak, "undated". "Taxes, Natural Resource Endowment, and the Supply of Labor: New Evidence," API-Working Paper Series 1005, Arab Planning Institute - Kuwait, Information Center.
    19. Michael J. Boskin & Laurence J. Kotlikoff, 1985. "Pubic Debt and U.S. Saving: A New Test of the Neutrality Hypothesis," NBER Working Papers 1646, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    20. Hahm, Joon-Ho, 1998. "Consumption adjustment to real interest rates: Intertemporal substitution revisited," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 22(2), pages 293-320, February.

    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:nbr:nberwo:2270. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.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.