IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/rba/rbardp/rdp2014-02.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Fiscal Policy and the Inflation Target

Author

Listed:
  • Peter Tulip

    (Reserve Bank of Australia)

Abstract

Low interest rates in the United States have recently been accompanied by large fiscal stimulus. However, discussions of monetary policy have neglected this fiscal activism, leading to over-estimates of the costs of the zero lower bound and, hence, of the appropriate inflation target. To rectify this, I include countercyclical fiscal policy within a large-scale model of the US economy. I find that fiscal activism can substitute for a high inflation target. An increase in the inflation target is not warranted, despite increased volatility of macroeconomic shocks, so long as fiscal policy behaves as it has recently.

Suggested Citation

  • Peter Tulip, 2014. "Fiscal Policy and the Inflation Target," RBA Research Discussion Papers rdp2014-02, Reserve Bank of Australia.
    • Handle: RePEc:rba:rbardp:rdp2014-02
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/rdp/2014/pdf/rdp2014-02.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hunt, Benjamin & Laxton, Douglas, 2004. "The Zero Interest Rate Floor (ZIF) and its Implications for Monetary Policy in Japan," National Institute Economic Review, National Institute of Economic and Social Research, vol. 187, pages 76-92, January.
    2. Roberto M. Billi, 2011. "Optimal Inflation for the US Economy," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 3(3), pages 29-52, July.
    3. Hess Chung & Jean‐Philippe Laforte & David Reifschneider & John C. Williams, 2012. "Have We Underestimated the Likelihood and Severity of Zero Lower Bound Events?," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 44(s1), pages 47-82, February.
    4. Glenn Follette & Byron Lutz, 2010. "Fiscal Policy in the United States: Automatic Stabilizers, Discretionary Fiscal Policy Actions, and the Economy," Revista de Economía y Estadística, Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, Facultad de Ciencias Económicas, Instituto de Economía y Finanzas, vol. 48(1), pages 41-73, Junio.
    5. Günter Coenen & Christopher J. Erceg & Charles Freedman & Davide Furceri & Michael Kumhof & René Lalonde & Douglas Laxton & Jesper Lindé & Annabelle Mourougane & Dirk Muir & Susanna Mursula & Carlos d, 2012. "Effects of Fiscal Stimulus in Structural Models," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 4(1), pages 22-68, January.
    6. John B. Taylor, 1999. "Introduction to "Monetary Policy Rules"," NBER Chapters, in: Monetary Policy Rules, pages 1-14, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Olivier Coibion & Yuriy Gorodnichenko & Johannes Wieland, 2012. "The Optimal Inflation Rate in New Keynesian Models: Should Central Banks Raise Their Inflation Targets in Light of the Zero Lower Bound?," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 79(4), pages 1371-1406.
    8. Boneva, Lena Mareen & Braun, R. Anton & Waki, Yuichiro, 2016. "Some unpleasant properties of loglinearized solutions when the nominal rate is zero," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 216-232.
    9. Coenen Günter & Orphanides Athanasios & Wieland Volker, 2004. "Price Stability and Monetary Policy Effectiveness when Nominal Interest Rates are Bounded at Zero," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 4(1), pages 1-25, February.
    10. Cogan, John F. & Cwik, Tobias & Taylor, John B. & Wieland, Volker, 2010. "New Keynesian versus old Keynesian government spending multipliers," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 34(3), pages 281-295, March.
    11. 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.
    12. Gauti B. Eggertsson & Michael Woodford, 2006. "Optimal Monetary and Fiscal Policy in a Liquidity Trap," NBER Chapters, in: NBER International Seminar on Macroeconomics 2004, pages 75-144, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Alan J. Auerbach & William G. Gale, 2009. "Activist fiscal policy to stabilize economic activity," Proceedings - Economic Policy Symposium - Jackson Hole, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, pages 327-374.
    14. Laurence M. Ball, 2013. "The Case for Four Percent Inflation," Central Bank Review, Research and Monetary Policy Department, Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey, vol. 13(2), pages 17-31.
    15. David L. Reifschneider & John C. Williams, 2000. "Three lessons for monetary policy in a low-inflation era," Conference Series ; [Proceedings], Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, pages 936-978.
    16. John B. Taylor, 1999. "A Historical Analysis of Monetary Policy Rules," NBER Chapters, in: Monetary Policy Rules, pages 319-348, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. John B. Taylor, 1999. "Monetary Policy Rules," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number tayl99-1.
    18. John C. Williams, 2009. "Heeding Daedalus: Optimal Inflation and the Zero Lower Bound," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 40(2 (Fall)), pages 1-49.
    19. Reifschneider, David & Willams, John C, 2000. "Three Lessons for Monetary Policy in a Low-Inflation Era," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 32(4), pages 936-966, November.
    20. John B. Taylor, 2000. "Reassessing Discretionary Fiscal Policy," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 14(3), pages 21-36, Summer.
    21. Roberto M. Billi & George A. Kahn, 2008. "What is the optimal inflation rate?," Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, vol. 93(Q II), pages 5-28.
    22. Olivier Coibion & Yuriy Gorodnichenko & Johannes Wieland, 2012. "The Optimal Inflation Rate in New Keynesian Models: Should Central Banks Raise Their Inflation Targets in Light of the Zero Lower Bound?," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 79(4), pages 1371-1406.
    23. J. Bradford DeLong & Lawrence H. Summers, 2012. "Fiscal Policy in a Depressed Economy," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 43(1 (Spring), pages 233-297.
    24. David L. Reifschneider & Peter Tulip, 2007. "Gauging the uncertainty of the economic outlook from historical forecasting errors," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2007-60, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    25. anonymous, 2004. "The macroeconomics of fiscal policy," Conference Series ; [Proceedings], Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, vol. 49(Jun).
    26. Benjamin M. Friedman & Michael Woodford (ed.), 2010. "Handbook of Monetary Economics," Handbook of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 3, number 3.
    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. António Afonso & João Tovar Jalles, 2017. "Fiscal Activism and Price Volatility: Evidence from Advanced and Emerging Economies," Working Papers Department of Economics 2017/04, ISEG - Lisbon School of Economics and Management, Department of Economics, Universidade de Lisboa.
    2. Philip Coyle & Taisuke Nakata, 2019. "Optimal Inflation Target with Expectations-Driven Liquidity Traps," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2019-036, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    3. Philip Coyle & Taisuke Nakata, 2020. "Optimal Inflation Target with Expectations-Driven Liquidity Traps," CARF F-Series CARF-F-485, Center for Advanced Research in Finance, Faculty of Economics, The University of Tokyo.
    4. Palek, Jakob, 2015. "The Optimal Monetary and Fiscal Policy Mix in a Financially Heterogeneous Monetary Union," VfS Annual Conference 2015 (Muenster): Economic Development - Theory and Policy 113047, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    5. Frédérique Bec & Patrick Kanda, 2019. "Is inflation driven by survey-based, VAR-based or myopic expectations?," Working Papers hal-02175836, HAL.
    6. Declan Trott, 2015. "Australia and the Zero Lower Bound on Interest Rates: Some Monetary Policy Options," Agenda - A Journal of Policy Analysis and Reform, Australian National University, College of Business and Economics, School of Economics, vol. 22(1), pages 5-20.
    7. Bec, Frédérique & Kanda, Patrick, 2020. "Is inflation driven by survey-based, VAR-based or myopic expectations? An empirical assessment from US real-time data," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 51(C).

    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. William B English & J David López-Salido & Robert J Tetlow, 2015. "The Federal Reserve’s Framework for Monetary Policy: Recent Changes and New Questions," IMF Economic Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Monetary Fund, vol. 63(1), pages 22-70, May.
    2. Taylor, John B. & Williams, John C., 2010. "Simple and Robust Rules for Monetary Policy," Handbook of Monetary Economics, in: Benjamin M. Friedman & Michael Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Monetary Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 15, pages 829-859, Elsevier.
    3. Guido Ascari & Argia M. Sbordone, 2014. "The Macroeconomics of Trend Inflation," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 52(3), pages 679-739, September.
    4. Philip Coyle & Taisuke Nakata, 2019. "Optimal Inflation Target with Expectations-Driven Liquidity Traps," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2019-036, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    5. Lansing, Kevin J., 2021. "Endogenous forecast switching near the zero lower bound," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 153-169.
    6. Michael T. Kiley, 2018. "Quantitative Easing and the ‘New Normal’ in Monetary Policy," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 86(S1), pages 21-49, September.
    7. Boris Hofmann & Marco Jacopo Lombardi & Benoit Mojon & Athanasios Orphanides, 2021. "Fiscal and monetary policy interactions in a low interest rate world," BIS Working Papers 954, Bank for International Settlements.
    8. Cecion, Martina & Coenen, Günter & Gerke, Rafael & Le Bihan, Hervé & Motto, Roberto & Aguilar, Pablo & Ajevskis, Viktors & Giesen, Sebastian & Albertazzi, Ugo & Gilbert, Niels & Al-Haschimi, Alexander, 2021. "The ECB’s price stability framework: past experience, and current and future challenges," Occasional Paper Series 269, European Central Bank.
    9. Aleksandra Praščević & Milutin Ješić, 2019. "Modeling Macroeconomic Policymakers’ Interactions under Zero Lower Bound Environment: The New Keynesian Theoretical Approach," Journal of Central Banking Theory and Practice, Central bank of Montenegro, vol. 8(1), pages 5-38.
    10. Coenen, Gunter & Wieland, Volker, 2003. "The zero-interest-rate bound and the role of the exchange rate for monetary policy in Japan," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(5), pages 1071-1101, July.
    11. Roberto M. Billi, 2020. "Output Gaps and Robust Monetary Policy Rules," International Journal of Central Banking, International Journal of Central Banking, vol. 16(2), pages 125-152, March.
    12. Proaño, Christian R. & Lojak, Benjamin, 2020. "Animal spirits, risk premia and monetary policy at the zero lower bound," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 171(C), pages 221-233.
    13. Philip Coyle & Taisuke Nakata, 2020. "Optimal Inflation Target with Expectations-Driven Liquidity Traps," CARF F-Series CARF-F-485, Center for Advanced Research in Finance, Faculty of Economics, The University of Tokyo.
    14. Tamim Bayoumi & Giovanni Dell'Ariccia & Karl F Habermeier & Tommaso Mancini Griffoli & Fabian Valencia, 2014. "Monetary Policy in the New Normal," IMF Staff Discussion Notes 14/3, International Monetary Fund.
    15. Michael T. Kiley & John M. Roberts, 2017. "Monetary Policy in a Low Interest Rate World," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 48(1 (Spring), pages 317-396.
    16. Hess Chung & Jean‐Philippe Laforte & David Reifschneider & John C. Williams, 2012. "Have We Underestimated the Likelihood and Severity of Zero Lower Bound Events?," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 44(s1), pages 47-82, February.
    17. Gavin, William T. & Keen, Benjamin D. & Richter, Alexander W. & Throckmorton, Nathaniel A., 2015. "The zero lower bound, the dual mandate, and unconventional dynamics," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 14-38.
    18. Dr. Gregor Bäurle & Daniel Kaufmann, 2014. "Exchange rate and price dynamics in a small open economy - the role of the zero lower bound and monetary policy regimes," Working Papers 2014-10, Swiss National Bank.
    19. Christopher Gust & Benjamin K. Johannsen & J. David López-Salido, 2017. "Monetary Policy, Incomplete Information, and the Zero Lower Bound," IMF Economic Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Monetary Fund, vol. 65(1), pages 37-70, April.
    20. Billi, Roberto M., 2018. "Price level targeting and risk management," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 163-173.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    fiscal policy; zero bound; inflation target;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • 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

    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:rba:rbardp:rdp2014-02. 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: Paula Drew (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/rbagvau.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.