IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/1645.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Relevance of the fiscal Theory of the Price Level revisited

Author

Listed:
  • Thams, Andreas

Abstract

This paper analyzes empirically the impact of fiscal policy on the price level for Germany and Spain. We investigate, whether the fiscal theory of the price level (FTPL) is able to deliver a reasonable explanation for the different evolutions of the price levels in these two countries during recent years. We apply a Bayesian VAR model with sign restrictions on the impulse responses to assess the relation between surpluses and public debt. The analysis basically evidences non-Ricardian equilibria in Spain, while the opposite is true for Germany. We interpret this as evidence for the inflation differences in these two countries being partially induced by fiscal policy shocks.

Suggested Citation

  • Thams, Andreas, 2007. "The Relevance of the fiscal Theory of the Price Level revisited," MPRA Paper 1645, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:1645
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/1645/1/MPRA_paper_1645.pdf
    File Function: original version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. 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..
    2. 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.
    3. Uhlig, Harald, 2005. "What are the effects of monetary policy on output? Results from an agnostic identification procedure," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(2), pages 381-419, March.
    4. Carlo Favero & Tommaso Monacelli, 2005. "Fiscal Policy Rules and Regime (In)Stability: Evidence from the U.S," Working Papers 282, IGIER (Innocenzo Gasparini Institute for Economic Research), Bocconi University.
    5. Buiter, Willem H., 1999. "The Fallacy of the Fiscal Theory of the Price Level," CEPR Discussion Papers 2205, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    6. Michael Woodford, 1998. "Control of the Public Debt: A Requirement for Price Stability?," International Economic Association Series, in: Guillermo Calvo & Mervyn King (ed.), The Debt Burden and its Consequences for Monetary Policy, chapter 5, pages 117-158, Palgrave Macmillan.
    7. Troy Davig & Eric M. Leeper, 2007. "Fluctuating Macro Policies and the Fiscal Theory," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 2006, Volume 21, pages 247-316, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. 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.
    9. António Afonso, 2002. "Disturbing the fiscal theory of the price level: Can it fit the eu-15?," 10th International Conference on Panel Data, Berlin, July 5-6, 2002 B4-3, International Conferences on Panel Data.
    10. Norbert Janssen & Charles Nolan & Ryland Thomas, 2004. "Money, Debt and Prices in the UK 1705-1996," CDMA Working Paper Series 200407, Centre for Dynamic Macroeconomic Analysis.
    11. 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.
    12. John H. Cochrane, 2000. "Money as Stock: Price Level Determination with no Money Demand," NBER Working Papers 7498, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. John H. Cochrane, 1999. "A Frictionless View of US Inflation," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1998, volume 13, pages 323-421, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. 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.
    15. Woodford, Michael, 2001. "Fiscal Requirements for Price Stability," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 33(3), pages 669-728, August.
    16. Willem H. Buiter, 2002. "The Fiscal Theory Of The Price Level: A Critique," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 112(481), pages 459-480, July.
    17. Uhlig, Harald, 1994. "What Macroeconomists Should Know about Unit Roots: A Bayesian Perspective," Econometric Theory, Cambridge University Press, vol. 10(3-4), pages 645-671, August.
    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. Thams, Andreas, 2007. "Fiscal policy rules in practice," MPRA Paper 2506, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Fan, Jingwen & Minford, Patrick, 2009. "Can the Fiscal Theory of the price level explain UK inflation in the 1970s?," Cardiff Economics Working Papers E2009/26, Cardiff University, Cardiff Business School, Economics Section, revised Mar 2011.
    3. Peter Claeys & Raúl Ramos & Jordi Suriñach, 2008. "Testing the FTPL across government tiers," IREA Working Papers 200812, University of Barcelona, Research Institute of Applied Economics, revised Oct 2008.

    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. repec:hum:wpaper:sfb649dp2006-016 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Thams, Andreas, 2006. "Fiscal policy effects in the European Union," SFB 649 Discussion Papers 2006-016, Humboldt University Berlin, Collaborative Research Center 649: Economic Risk.
    3. Fan, Jingwen & Minford, Patrick, 2009. "Can the Fiscal Theory of the price level explain UK inflation in the 1970s?," Cardiff Economics Working Papers E2009/26, Cardiff University, Cardiff Business School, Economics Section, revised Mar 2011.
    4. 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.
    5. 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.
    6. 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.
    7. Óscar J. Arce, 2005. "Reflections on fiscalist divergent price-paths," Working Papers 0533, Banco de España.
    8. 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.
    9. Michael Kumhof, 2004. "Fiscal Crisis Resolution: Taxation versus Inflation," Working Papers 102004, Hong Kong Institute for Monetary Research.
    10. Minford, Patrick & Ou, Zhirong & Fan, Jingwen, 2013. "The Fiscal Theory of the Price Level - identification and testing for the UK in the 1970s," CEPR Discussion Papers 9763, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    11. Cochrane, John H., 2005. "Money as stock," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(3), pages 501-528, April.
    12. Leeper, E.M. & Leith, C., 2016. "Understanding Inflation as a Joint Monetary–Fiscal Phenomenon," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & Harald Uhlig (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 2305-2415, Elsevier.
    13. 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.
    14. 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.
    15. António AFONSO & Priscilla TOFFANO, 2013. "Fiscal regimes in the EU," Working Papers of Department of Economics, Leuven ces13.06, KU Leuven, Faculty of Economics and Business (FEB), Department of Economics, Leuven.
    16. Joanna Mackiewicz­‑Łyziak, 2014. "Wpływ długu publicznego na oczekiwania inflacyjne konsumentów w Europie," Gospodarka Narodowa. The Polish Journal of Economics, Warsaw School of Economics, issue 5, pages 113-132.
    17. 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.
    18. 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.
    19. Łyziak, Tomasz & Mackiewicz-Łyziak, Joanna, 2020. "Does fiscal stance affect inflation expectations? Evidence for European economies," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 296-310.
    20. 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).
    21. Willem Buiter, 2000. "The Fallacy of the Fiscal Theory of the Price Level, Again," CESifo Working Paper Series 303, CESifo.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Fiscal theory; policy interaction; monetary policy; public debt; price level; euro area;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E52 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Monetary Policy
    • E31 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Price Level; Inflation; Deflation
    • E61 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Policy Objectives; Policy Designs and Consistency; Policy Coordination

    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:pra:mprapa:1645. 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: Joachim Winter (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfmunde.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.