IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/eecrev/v55y2011i1p57-74.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Government debt and optimal monetary and fiscal policy

Author

Listed:
  • Adam, Klaus

Abstract

How do different levels of government debt affect the optimal conduct of monetary and fiscal policies? And what do these optimal policies imply for the evolution of government debt over time? To provide an answer, this paper studies a standard monetary policy model with nominal rigidities and monopolistic competition and adds to it a fiscal authority that issues nominal non-state contingent debt, levies distortionary labor income taxes and determines the level of public goods provision. Higher government debt levels make it optimal to reduce public spending, so as to dampen the adverse incentive effects of distortionary taxes, but also strongly influence the optimal stabilization response following technology shocks. In particular, higher debt levels give rise to larger risks to the fiscal budget and to tax rates. This makes it optimal to reduce government debt over time. The optimal speed of debt reduction is missed when using first-order approximations to optimal policies, but is shown to be quantitatively significant in a second-order approximation, especially when technology movements are largely unpredictable in nature.

Suggested Citation

  • Adam, Klaus, 2011. "Government debt and optimal monetary and fiscal policy," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 55(1), pages 57-74, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:eecrev:v:55:y:2011:i:1:p:57-74
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0014-2921(10)00104-2
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

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

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Adam, Klaus & Billi, Roberto M., 2006. "Optimal Monetary Policy under Commitment with a Zero Bound on Nominal Interest Rates," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 38(7), pages 1877-1905, October.
    2. Javier Diaz-Gimenez & Giorgia Giovannetti & Ramon Marimon & Pedro Teles, 2008. "Nominal Debt as a Burden on Monetary Policy," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 11(3), pages 493-514, July.
    3. Michael Woodford, 1998. "Doing Without Money: Controlling Inflation in a Post-Monetary World," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 1(1), pages 173-219, January.
    4. Campbell Leith & Simon Wren-Lewis, 2013. "Fiscal Sustainability in a New Keynesian Model," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 45(8), pages 1477-1516, December.
    5. Schmitt-Grohe, Stephanie & Uribe, Martin, 2004. "Optimal fiscal and monetary policy under sticky prices," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 114(2), pages 198-230, February.
    6. Barro, Robert J, 1979. "On the Determination of the Public Debt," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 87(5), pages 940-971, October.
    7. Adam, Klaus & Billi, Roberto M., 2008. "Monetary conservatism and fiscal policy," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(8), pages 1376-1388, November.
    8. 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.
    9. S. Rao Aiyagari & Albert Marcet & Thomas J. Sargent & Juha Seppala, 2002. "Optimal Taxation without State-Contingent Debt," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 110(6), pages 1220-1254, December.
    10. Sbordone, Argia M., 2002. "Prices and unit labor costs: a new test of price stickiness," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(2), pages 265-292, March.
    11. Gomme, Paul & Klein, Paul, 2011. "Second-order approximation of dynamic models without the use of tensors," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 35(4), pages 604-615, April.
    12. Leith, Campbell & Moldovan, Ioana & Rossi, Raffaele, 2015. "Monetary and fiscal policy under deep habits," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 55-74.
    13. Chari, V V & Christiano, Lawrence J & Kehoe, Patrick J, 1991. "Optimal Fiscal and Monetary Policy: Some Recent Results," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 23(3), pages 519-539, August.
    14. Adam, Klaus & Billi, Roberto M., 2014. "Distortionary fiscal policy and monetary policy goals," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 122(1), pages 1-6.
    15. Rotemberg, Julio J, 1982. "Sticky Prices in the United States," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 90(6), pages 1187-1211, December.
    16. Adam, Klaus & Billi, Roberto M., 2008. "Monetary conservatism and fiscal policy," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(8), pages 1376-1388, 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. Klaus Adam, 2010. "Optimal Monetary and Fiscal Stabilisation Policies," OECD Economics Department Working Papers 765, OECD Publishing.
    2. Niemann, Stefan & Pichler, Paul, 2011. "Optimal fiscal and monetary policies in the face of rare disasters," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 55(1), pages 75-92, January.
    3. Miller, David S., 2016. "Commitment versus discretion in a political economy model of fiscal and monetary policy interaction," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 17-29.
    4. 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.
    5. Niemann, Stefan & Pichler, Paul & Sorger, Gerhard, 2013. "Public debt, discretionary policy, and inflation persistence," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 37(6), pages 1097-1109.
    6. Adam, Klaus & Billi, Roberto M., 2008. "Monetary conservatism and fiscal policy," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(8), pages 1376-1388, November.
    7. Stefano Gnocchi & Luisa Lambertini, 2016. "Monetary Commitment and the Level of Public Debt," Staff Working Papers 16-3, Bank of Canada.
    8. Martin, Fernando M., 2015. "Debt, inflation and central bank independence," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 129-150.
    9. N. Gregory Mankiw & Ricardo Reis, 2002. "Sticky Information versus Sticky Prices: A Proposal to Replace the New Keynesian Phillips Curve," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 117(4), pages 1295-1328.
    10. Campbell Leith & Eric Leeper, 2016. "Understanding Inflation as a Joint Monetary-Fiscal Phenomenon," Working Papers 2016_01, Business School - Economics, University of Glasgow.
    11. Tatiana Kirsanova & Campbell Leith & Simon Wren‐Lewis, 2009. "Monetary and Fiscal Policy Interaction: The Current Consensus Assignment in the Light of Recent Developments," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 119(541), pages 482-496, November.
    12. Schmitt-Grohe, Stephanie & Uribe, Martin, 2004. "Optimal fiscal and monetary policy under sticky prices," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 114(2), pages 198-230, February.
    13. Du, Houyang & Guo, Ye & Liu, Xuan, 2018. "How does the timing of markets affect optimal monetary and fiscal policy in sticky price models?," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 237-248.
    14. David Miller, 2014. "Commitment versus Discretion in a Political Economy Model of Fiscal and Monetary Policy Interaction," 2014 Meeting Papers 80, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    15. Niemann, S & Pichler, P & Sorger, G, 2009. "Inflation dynamics under optimal discretionary fiscal and monetary policies," Economics Discussion Papers 2898, University of Essex, Department of Economics.
    16. Adam, Klaus & Billi, Roberto M., 2014. "Distortionary fiscal policy and monetary policy goals," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 122(1), pages 1-6.
    17. Campbell Leith & Simon Wren-Lewis, 2013. "Fiscal Sustainability in a New Keynesian Model," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 45(8), pages 1477-1516, December.
    18. Boris Chafwehé & Rigas Oikonomou & Romanos Priftis & Lukas Vogel, 2021. "(Optimal) Monetary Policy with and without Debt," Staff Working Papers 21-5, Bank of Canada.
    19. Bai, Yuting & Kirsanova, Tatiana & Leith, Campbell, 2017. "Nominal targeting in an economy with government debt," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 103-125.
    20. Niemann, Stefan, 2011. "Dynamic monetary–fiscal interactions and the role of monetary conservatism," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(3), pages 234-247.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Ramsey optimal policy Second-order approximation Non-contingent debt Sticky prices;

    JEL classification:

    • E61 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Policy Objectives; Policy Designs and Consistency; Policy Coordination
    • 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:eee:eecrev:v:55:y:2011:i:1:p:57-74. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/eer .

    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.