IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/fce/doctra/0003.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

La théorie budgétaire du niveau des prix : un bilan critique (The Fiscal Theory of the Price Level, a critical assessment) (in French with English summary)

Author

Abstract

This article presents a survey of the Fiscal Theory of the Price Level. According to it, there are two stable regimes of economic policies: one, traditional, where the monetary authorities control inflation and where the fiscal authorities must be concerned with their intertemporal balance. The other, where the monetary policy is passive and where the fiscal authorities can be non-ricardian, i.e. unconcerned with public debt: the price level adjusts the real debt to the future discounted primary surpluses. The FTPL is presented following its historical developments: from its precursors (Sargent, Begg...) to its recent promoters (Leeper, Woodford); from its theoretical critics (Buiter) to its empirical criticisms. The FTPL is neither consistent with the observed behaviour of monetary authorities, nor with the empirical sluggishness of inflation (this latter result is an original one). However, it highlights the need to analyse the strategic interactions between fiscal and monetary policies.

Suggested Citation

  • Jerome Creel & Henri Sterdyniak, 2000. "La théorie budgétaire du niveau des prix : un bilan critique (The Fiscal Theory of the Price Level, a critical assessment) (in French with English summary)," Documents de Travail de l'OFCE 2000-03, Observatoire Francais des Conjonctures Economiques (OFCE).
    • Handle: RePEc:fce:doctra:0003
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.ofce.sciences-po.fr/pdf/dtravail/wp00-03.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Fuhrer, Jeffrey C, 1997. "The (Un)Importance of Forward-Looking Behavior in Price Specifications," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 29(3), pages 338-350, August.
    2. Barro, Robert J, 1974. "Are Government Bonds Net Wealth?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 82(6), pages 1095-1117, Nov.-Dec..
    3. Henning Bohn, 1998. "The Behavior of U. S. Public Debt and Deficits," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 113(3), pages 949-963.
    4. Jérôme Creel & Henri Sterdyniak, 1999. "La politique monétaire sans monnaie," Revue de l'OFCE, Programme National Persée, vol. 70(1), pages 111-153.
    5. Leeper, Eric M., 1991. "Equilibria under 'active' and 'passive' monetary and fiscal policies," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(1), pages 129-147, February.
    6. Willem Buiter, 2000. "The Fallacy of the Fiscal Theory of the Price Level, Again," CESifo Working Paper Series 303, CESifo.
    7. Buiter, Willem H., 1998. "The Young Person's Guide to Neutrality, Price Level Indeterminacy, Interest Rate Pegs and Fiscal Theories of the Price Level," CEPR Discussion Papers 1799, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    8. 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.
    9. 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.
    10. Clarida, Richard & Gali, Jordi & Gertler, Mark, 1998. "Monetary policy rules in practice Some international evidence," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 42(6), pages 1033-1067, June.
    11. Lawrence J. Christiano & Terry J. Fitzgerald, 2000. "Understanding the fiscal theory of the price level," Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, issue Q II, pages 2-38.
    12. Blanchard, Olivier Jean & Kahn, Charles M, 1980. "The Solution of Linear Difference Models under Rational Expectations," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 48(5), pages 1305-1311, July.
    13. Jérôme Creel & Henri Sterdyniak, 1999. "Pour en finir avec la masse monétaire," Revue Économique, Programme National Persée, vol. 50(3), pages 523-533.
    14. Fabrice Capoen & Henri Sterdyniak & Pierre Villa, 1994. "Indépendance des banques centrales, politiques monétaire et budgétaire : une approche stratégique," Revue de l'OFCE, Programme National Persée, vol. 50(1), pages 65-102.
    15. William Kerr & Robert G. King, 1996. "Limits on interest rate rules in the IS model," Economic Quarterly, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, issue Spr, pages 47-75.
    16. Buiter, Willem H., 1999. "The Fallacy of the Fiscal Theory of the Price Level," CEPR Discussion Papers 2205, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    17. Charles T. Carlstrom & Timothy S. Fuerst, 1999. "Money growth and inflation: does fiscal policy matter?," Economic Commentary, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, issue Apr.
    18. Matthew B. Canzoneri & Robert E. Cumby & Behzad T. Diba, 2001. "Is the Price Level Determined by the Needs of Fiscal Solvency?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(5), pages 1221-1238, December.
    19. Barro, Robert J., 1989. "Interest-rate targeting," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 23(1), pages 3-30, January.
    20. Gerlach, Stefan & Schnabel, Gert, 2000. "The Taylor rule and interest rates in the EMU area," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 67(2), pages 165-171, May.
    21. Richard H. Clarida & Jordi Gali & Mark Gertler, 1998. "Monetary policy rules in practice," Proceedings, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, issue Mar.
    22. Olivier Jean Blanchard & Stanley Fischer, 1989. "Lectures on Macroeconomics," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262022834, December.
    23. John H. Cochrane, 2000. "Money as Stock: Price Level Determination with no Money Demand," NBER Working Papers 7498, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    24. Paul R. Bergin, 2017. "Fiscal Solvency and Price Level Determination in a Monetary Union," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: International Macroeconomic Interdependence, chapter 12, pages 343-362, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    25. Leith, Campbell & Wren-Lewis, Simon, 2000. "Interactions between Monetary and Fiscal Policy Rules," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 110(462), pages 93-108, March.
    26. Cushing, Matthew J., 1999. "The indeterminacy of prices under interest rate pegging: The non-Ricardian case," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(1), pages 131-148, August.
    27. 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.
    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. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/1423 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Jérôme Creel & Francesco Saraceno & Paola Veroni, 2005. "Discretionary Policy Interactions and the Fiscal Theory of the Price Level: A SVAR Analysis on French Data," Sciences Po publications info:hdl:2441/2525, Sciences Po.
    3. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/2525 is not listed 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. Jérôme Creel & Henri Sterdyniak, 2001. "La théorie budgétaire du niveau des prix, un bilan critique," Revue d'économie politique, Dalloz, vol. 111(6), pages 909-939.
    2. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/5122 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. repec:hal:wpspec:info:hdl:2441/5122 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. repec:spo:wpecon:info:hdl:2441/5122 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. António Afonso, 2002. "Disturbing the Fiscal Theory of the Price Level: Can it Fit the EU-15," Working Papers Department of Economics 2002/01, ISEG - Lisbon School of Economics and Management, Department of Economics, Universidade de Lisboa.
    6. repec:hal:wpspec:info:hdl:2441/2961 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Jérôme Creel & Henri Sterdyniak, 1999. "La politique monétaire sans monnaie," Revue de l'OFCE, Programme National Persée, vol. 70(1), pages 111-153.
    8. repec:spo:wpecon:info:hdl:2441/2961 is not listed on IDEAS
    9. Chadha, J.S. & Nolan, C., 2003. "On the Interaction of Monetary and Fiscal Policy," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 0303, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    10. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/2961 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Creel, Jerome & Bihan, Herve Le, 2006. "Using structural balance data to test the fiscal theory of the price level: Some international evidence," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 28(2), pages 338-360, June.
    12. Jerome Creel & Henri Sterdyniak, 2002. "The fiscal theory of the price level and sluggish inflation: how important shall the wealth effect be?," Documents de Travail de l'OFCE 2002-01, Observatoire Francais des Conjonctures Economiques (OFCE).
    13. Bajo-Rubio, Oscar & Díaz-Roldán, Carmen & Esteve, Vicente, 2009. "Deficit sustainability and inflation in EMU: An analysis from the Fiscal Theory of the Price Level," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 25(4), pages 525-539, December.
    14. Woodford, Michael, 1995. "Price-level determinacy without control of a monetary aggregate," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 43(1), pages 1-46, December.
    15. Bennett T. Mccallum, 2003. "Is The Fiscal Theory of the Price Level Learnable?," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 50(5), pages 634-649, November.
    16. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/3263 is not listed on IDEAS
    17. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/2972 is not listed on IDEAS
    18. McCallum, Bennett T., 2001. "Indeterminacy, bubbles, and the fiscal theory of price level determination," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(1), pages 19-30, February.
    19. Andreas Thams, 2006. "Fiscal Policy Effects in the European Union," SFB 649 Discussion Papers SFB649DP2006-016, Sonderforschungsbereich 649, Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany.
    20. Fan, Jingwen & Minford, Patrick & Ou, Zhirong, 2016. "The role of fiscal policy in Britain's Great Inflation," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 203-218.
    21. Thams, Andreas, 2007. "The Relevance of the fiscal Theory of the Price Level revisited," MPRA Paper 1645, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    22. Rym Aloui & Michel Guillard, 2020. "The Fiscal Theory of the Price Level in a Non-Ricardian Economy," Annals of Economics and Statistics, GENES, issue 137, pages 65-82.
    23. Canzoneri, Matthew & Cumby, Robert & Diba, Behzad, 2010. "The Interaction Between Monetary and Fiscal Policy," Handbook of Monetary Economics, in: Benjamin M. Friedman & Michael Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Monetary Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 17, pages 935-999, Elsevier.
    24. Buiter, Willem H. & Sibert, Anne C., 2018. "The fallacy of the fiscal theory of the price level: One last time," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 12, pages 1-56.
    25. Leith, Campbell & Wren-Lewis, Simon, 2008. "Interactions between monetary and fiscal policy under flexible exchange rates," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 32(9), pages 2854-2882, September.
    26. 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.
    27. 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.
    28. Óscar J. Arce, 2005. "Reflections on fiscalist divergent price-paths," Working Papers 0533, Banco de España.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    fiscal theory of the price level; inflation rate; monetary policy; fiscal policy; public debt;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E17 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - General Aggregative Models - - - Forecasting and Simulation: Models and Applications
    • 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
    • H63 - Public Economics - - National Budget, Deficit, and Debt - - - Debt; Debt Management; Sovereign Debt

    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:fce:doctra:0003. 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: Francesco Saraceno (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ofcspfr.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.