IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/21226.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Different Types of Central Bank Insolvency and the Central Role of Seignorage

Author

Listed:
  • Ricardo Reis

Abstract

A central bank is insolvent if its plans imply a Ponzi scheme on reserves so the price level becomes infinity. If the central bank enjoys fiscal support, in the form of a dividend rule that pays out net income every period, including when it is negative, it can never become insolvent independently of the fiscal authority. Otherwise, this note distinguishes between intertemporal insolvency, rule insolvency, and period insolvency. While period and rule solvency depend on analyzing dividend rules and sources of risk to net income, evaluating intertemporal solvency requires overcoming the difficult challenge of measuring the present value of seignorage.

Suggested Citation

  • Ricardo Reis, 2015. "Different Types of Central Bank Insolvency and the Central Role of Seignorage," NBER Working Papers 21226, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:21226
    Note: ME
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w21226.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Marvin Goodfriend, 2014. "Monetary Policy as a Carry Trade," IMES Discussion Paper Series 14-E-08, Institute for Monetary and Economic Studies, Bank of Japan.
    2. Ricardo Reis, 2009. "The Time-Series Properties of Aggregate Consumption: Implications for the Costs of Fluctuations," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 7(4), pages 722-753, June.
    3. Marvin Goodfriend, 1993. "Interest rate policy and the inflation scare problem: 1979-1992," Proceedings, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    4. Ricardo Reis, 2013. "The Mystique Surrounding the Central Bank's Balance Sheet, Applied to the European Crisis," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(3), pages 135-140, May.
    5. Robert J. Barro & Xavier Sala-i-Martin, 2003. "Economic Growth, 2nd Edition," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 2, volume 1, number 0262025531, December.
    6. Buiter, Willem, 2014. "Central Banks: Powerful, Political and Unaccountable?," CEPR Discussion Papers 10223, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    7. Ball, Laurence, 2001. "Another look at long-run money demand," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(1), pages 31-44, February.
    8. Ricardo Reis, 2013. "Central Bank Design," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 27(4), pages 17-44, Fall.
    9. Del Negro, Marco & Sims, Christopher A., 2015. "When does a central bank׳s balance sheet require fiscal support?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 1-19.
    10. Arthur Galego Mendes & Tiago Couto Berriel, "undated". "Central Bank Balance Sheet, Liquidity Trap, and Quantitative Easing," Textos para discussão 638, Department of Economics PUC-Rio (Brazil).
    11. Ricardo Reis, 2013. "The Mystique Surrounding the Central Bank's Balance Sheet, Applied to the European Crisis," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(3), pages 135-140, May.
    12. Marvin Goodfriend, 2014. "Keynote Speech: Monetary Policy as a Carry Trade," Monetary and Economic Studies, Institute for Monetary and Economic Studies, Bank of Japan, vol. 32, pages 29-44, November.
    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. Michele Cavallo & Marco Del Negro & W. Scott Frame & Jamie Grasing & Benjamin A. Malin & Carlo Rosa, 2019. "Fiscal Implications of the Federal Reserve's Balance Sheet Normalization," International Journal of Central Banking, International Journal of Central Banking, vol. 15(5), pages 255-306, December.
    2. Ricardo Reis, 2015. "Different Types of Central Bank Insolvency and the Central Role of Seignorage," NBER Working Papers 21226, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Del Negro, Marco & Sims, Christopher A., 2015. "When does a central bank׳s balance sheet require fiscal support?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 1-19.
    4. Reis, Ricardo, 2015. "Comment on: “when does a central bank’s balance sheet require fiscal support?” by Marco Del Negro and Christopher A. Sims," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 65867, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    5. Atsushi Tanaka, 2020. "Central Bank Capital and Credibility: A Literature Survey," Discussion Paper Series 208, School of Economics, Kwansei Gakuin University, revised May 2020.
    6. Masciandaro, Donato, 2022. "Independence, conservatism, and beyond: Monetary policy, central bank governance and central banker preferences (1981–2021)," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 122(C).
    7. Caballero, Diego & Lucas, André & Schwaab, Bernd & Zhang, Xin, 2020. "Risk endogeneity at the lender/investor-of-last-resort," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 116(C), pages 283-297.
    8. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/6tr1nod75s8ica439nb3qggf7q is not listed on IDEAS
    9. Bassetto, Marco & Phelan, Christopher, 2015. "Speculative runs on interest rate pegs," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 99-114.
    10. Pierpaolo Benigno & Salvatore Nisticò, 2020. "Non-neutrality of Open-Market Operations," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 12(3), pages 175-226, July.
    11. Christiaan van der Kwaak, 2024. "Monetary financing does not produce miraculous fiscal multipliers," Discussion Papers 2417, Centre for Macroeconomics (CFM).
    12. Julien Pinter, 2018. "Does Central Bank Financial Strength Really Matter for Inflation? The Key Role of the Fiscal Support," Open Economies Review, Springer, vol. 29(5), pages 911-952, November.
    13. Christensen, Jens H.E. & Lopez, Jose A. & Rudebusch, Glenn D., 2015. "A probability-based stress test of Federal Reserve assets and income," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 26-43.
    14. Jakob Korbinian Eberl, 2016. "The Collateral Framework of the Eurosystem and Its Fiscal Implications," ifo Beiträge zur Wirtschaftsforschung, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, number 69, September.
    15. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/6tr1nod75s8ica439nb3qggf7q is not listed on IDEAS
    16. Martin, Alberto, 2016. "Comments on “Reverse speculative attacks” by M. Amador, J. Bianchi, L. Bocola and F. Perri," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 138-140.
    17. Gebauer, Stefan & Pool, Sebastiaan & Schumacher, Julian, 2024. "The inflationary consequences of prioritising central bank profits," Working Paper Series 2985, European Central Bank.
    18. Dimakopoulou, Vasiliki & Economides, George & Philippopoulos, Apostolis & Vassilatos, Vanghelis, 2024. "Can central banks do the unpleasant job that governments should do?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 165(C).
    19. Fujiki, Hiroshi & Tomura, Hajime, 2017. "Fiscal cost to exit quantitative easing: the case of Japan," Japan and the World Economy, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 1-11.
    20. Atsushi Tanaka, 2020. "Monetary Base Controllability after an Exit from Quantitative Easing," Journal of Central Banking Theory and Practice, Central bank of Montenegro, vol. 9(3), pages 123-134.
    21. Igor Goncharov & Vasso Ioannidou & Martin C. Schmalz, 2020. "(Why) do central banks care about their profits?," ECONtribute Discussion Papers Series 018, University of Bonn and University of Cologne, Germany.
    22. Bofinger, Peter & Feld, Lars P. & Schmidt, Christoph M. & Schnabel, Isabel & Wieland, Volker, 2018. "Vor wichtigen wirtschaftspolitischen Weichenstellungen. Jahresgutachten 2018/19 [Setting the Right Course for Economic Policy. Annual Report 2018/19]," Annual Economic Reports / Jahresgutachten, German Council of Economic Experts / Sachverständigenrat zur Begutachtung der gesamtwirtschaftlichen Entwicklung, volume 127, number 201819.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • E42 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Monetary Sytsems; Standards; Regimes; Government and the Monetary System
    • E58 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Central Banks and Their Policies
    • E59 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Other

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:21226. 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.