“Policy-mix” et aversion optimale du banquier central pour l’inflation : pourquoi les préférences de la société sont-elles dénaturées?

This paper studies the optimal monetary organization from a social point of view in a model with three players (the central bank, the government, the private sector), and in particular the reasons leading to people to entrust monetary policy to a central banker who weights inflation deviations more heavily than the fiscal authority. It criticizes the assimilations between independence and conservative central banker on the one hand, and between independence and non-coordinated fiscal and monetary policies on the other hand. Selecting an agent who is known to place a greater weight on inflation stabilization (relative to unemployment stabilization) is not systematically justified. The optimal governor may be on the contrary less inflation averse than the representative agent. The inflation aversion depends on the nature of the policy game, and on the specific priorities of the fiscal player who is not necessarily benevolent. The introduction of the fiscal authority into the standard theoritical framework finally shows that the cooperative configuration is more convincing to justify the appointment of a central banker with strong anti-inflationary tendencies.