IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cpr/ceprdp/18002.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Monetary-fiscal policy interactions when price stability occasionally takes a back seat

Author

Listed:
  • Schmidt, Sebastian

Abstract

What are the macroeconomic consequences of a government that is limited in its willingness or ability to raise primary surpluses, and a central bank that accommodates its interest-rate policy to the fiscal conditions? I address this question in a dynamic stochastic sticky-price model with endogenous shifts between an "orthodox'" and a "fiscally-dominant'" policy regime. The risk of future regime shifts has encompassing effects on equilibrium. Inflation is systematically higher than it would be if fiscal policy always adjusted its primary surplus sufficiently and monetary policy was solely concerned with price stability. This inflation bias is increasing in the real value of government debt. Regime-switching probabilities are not invariant to policy. The central bank can attenuate the risk of a shift to the fiscally-dominant regime by raising the real interest rate sufficiently moderately when inflation increases. Lower fiscal dominance risk, in turn, mitigates the inflation bias.

Suggested Citation

  • Schmidt, Sebastian, 2023. "Monetary-fiscal policy interactions when price stability occasionally takes a back seat," CEPR Discussion Papers 18002, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    • Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:18002
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://cepr.org/publications/DP18002
    Download Restriction: CEPR Discussion Papers are free to download for our researchers, subscribers and members. If you fall into one of these categories but have trouble downloading our papers, please contact us at subscribers@cepr.org
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or

    for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Francesco Bianchi & Cosmin Ilut, 2017. "Monetary/Fiscal Policy Mix and Agent's Beliefs," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 26, pages 113-139, October.
    2. Francesco Bianchi & Leonardo Melosi, 2017. "Escaping the Great Recession," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(4), pages 1030-1058, April.
    3. Barthélemy, Jean & Mengus, Eric & Plantin, Guillaume, 2024. "The central bank, the treasury, or the market: Which one determines the price level?," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 220(C).
    4. Carola Conces Binder, 2021. "Political Pressure on Central Banks," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 53(4), pages 715-744, June.
    5. Bianchi, Francesco & Melosi, Leonardo, 2019. "The dire effects of the lack of monetary and fiscal coordination," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 1-22.
    6. Hills, Timothy S. & Nakata, Taisuke & Schmidt, Sebastian, 2019. "Effective lower bound risk," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 120(C).
    7. Hess Chung & Troy Davig & Eric M. Leeper, 2007. "Monetary and Fiscal Policy Switching," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 39(4), pages 809-842, June.
    8. Sargent, Thomas J, 1982. "Beyond Demand and Supply Curves in Macroeconomics," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 72(2), pages 382-389, May.
    9. Xiaoshan Chen & Eric M. Leeper & Campbell Leith, 2022. "Strategic interactions in U.S. monetary and fiscal policies," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 13(2), pages 593-628, May.
    10. Calvo, Guillermo A., 1983. "Staggered prices in a utility-maximizing framework," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 12(3), pages 383-398, September.
    11. Coenen, Günter & Karadi, Peter & Schmidt, Sebastian & Warne, Anders, 2018. "The New Area-Wide Model II: an extended version of the ECB’s micro-founded model for forecasting and policy analysis with a financial sector," Working Paper Series 2200, European Central Bank.
    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. Stéphane Dupraz & Anna Rogantini Picco, 2024. "Fiscal Requirements for Price Stability When Households are Not Ricardian," Working papers 981, Banque de France.
    2. Philippe Andrade & Erwan Gautier & Eric Mengus & Emanuel Münch & Tobias Schmidt, 2025. "Household Beliefs about Fiscal Dominance," Working papers 986, Banque de France.
    3. Rosso, Biagio & Gatto, Matteo, 2024. "Dynamics and Optimal Monetary-Fiscal Policy in Fiscally Dominant Economies with Occasionally Inflexible Monetary Authorities," MPRA Paper 125094, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised Jun 2025.

    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. Andryushin, S., 2024. "Interest rate policy of the Bank of Russia in conditions of fiscally-dominant regime: Risks and prospects," Journal of the New Economic Association, New Economic Association, vol. 62(1), pages 211-219.
    2. Baumann, Ursel & Lodge, David & Miescu, Mirela S., 2019. "Global growth on life support? The contributions of fiscal and monetary policy since the global financial crisis," Working Paper Series 2248, European Central Bank.
    3. Bernoth, Kerstin & Herwartz, Helmut & Trienens, Lasse, 2024. "Interest Rates, Convenience Yields and Inflation Expectations: Drivers of US Dollar Exchange Rates," VfS Annual Conference 2024 (Berlin): Upcoming Labor Market Challenges 302351, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association, revised 2024.
    4. Tatiana Kirsanova & Celsa Machado & Ana Paula Ribeiro, 2020. "Tight and Loose, and Red and Blue: A 'Dance' of Macro Policies in the US," Working Papers 2020_14, Business School - Economics, University of Glasgow.
    5. Kostas Mavromatis, 2020. "Finite Horizons and the Monetary/Fiscal Policy Mix," International Journal of Central Banking, International Journal of Central Banking, vol. 16(4), pages 327-378, September.
    6. Ascari, Guido & Beck-Friis, Peder & Florio, Anna & Gobbi, Alessandro, 2023. "Fiscal foresight and the effects of government spending: It’s all in the monetary-fiscal mix," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 134(C), pages 1-15.
    7. Hinterlang, Natascha & Hollmayr, Josef, 2022. "Classification of monetary and fiscal dominance regimes using machine learning techniques," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    8. Francesco Bianchi & Leonardo Melosi, 2022. "Inflation as a Fiscal Limit," Working Paper Series WP 2022-37, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
    9. Leeper, Eric M. & Zhou, Xuan, 2021. "Inflation’s role in optimal monetary-fiscal policy," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 124(C), pages 1-18.
    10. Sebasti√°n Cadavid S√°nchez, 2018. "Monetary policy and structural changes in Colombia, 1990-2016: A Markov Switching approach," Documentos CEDE 16970, Universidad de los Andes, Facultad de Economía, CEDE.
    11. Gomes, Pedro & Seoane, Hernán D., 2024. "Made in Europe: Monetary–Fiscal policy mix with financial frictions," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 165(C).
    12. Kriwoluzky, Alexander & Müller, Gernot J. & Wolf, Martin, 2019. "Exit expectations and debt crises in currency unions," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 121(C).
    13. Mao, Ruoyun & Shen, Wenyi & Yang, Shu-Chun S., 2024. "Can passive monetary policy decrease the debt burden?," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 159(C).
    14. repec:rza:wpaper:899 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Chang, Yoosoon & Kwak, Boreum & Qiu, Shi, 2021. "U.S. monetary and fiscal policy regime changes and their interactions," IWH Discussion Papers 12/2021, Halle Institute for Economic Research (IWH).
    16. Tatiana Kirsanova & Campbell Leith & Ding Liu, 2024. "Central Bank Independence, Government Debt and the Re-Normalization of Interest Rates," Working Papers 2024_10, Business School - Economics, University of Glasgow.
    17. Coenen, Günter & Montes-Galdón, Carlos & Schmidt, Sebastian, 2021. "Macroeconomic stabilisation and monetary policy effectiveness in a low-interest-rate environment," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 132(C).
    18. Hinterlang, Natascha & Hollmayr, Josef, 2020. "Classification of monetary and fiscal dominance regimes using machine learning techniques," Discussion Papers 51/2020, Deutsche Bundesbank.
    19. Richard Harrison & Matt Waldron, 2021. "Optimal policy with occasionally binding constraints: piecewise linear solution methods," Bank of England working papers 911, Bank of England.
    20. Kronick, Jeremy & Petersen, Luba, 2025. "Is monetary and fiscal policy conflict that dire?," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 172(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • E31 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Price Level; Inflation; Deflation
    • E52 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Monetary Policy
    • E62 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Fiscal Policy; Modern Monetary Theory
    • E63 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Comparative or Joint Analysis of Fiscal and Monetary Policy; Stabilization; Treasury Policy

    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:cpr:ceprdp:18002. 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://www.cepr.org .

    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.