IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/sce/scecf3/292.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Delegation of Monetary Policy: More than a Relocation of the Time-Inconsistency Problem

Author

Listed:
  • Zeno Rotondi
  • John Driffill

Abstract

It has been argued that delegation of monetary policy to an independent central bank, which acts as an agent for the government, does not mitigate the problem of time-inconsistency, but merely relocates it. We argue here that this is not so, and that delegation enables a wider class of economies to sustain zero inflation than would be able to do so in its absence. We consider an economy in which the government faces re-appointment costs, that is, costs associated with sacking one central banker and replacing them with another, costs which are intended to protect central bank independence. We show that, by means of suitable announcements of incentive schemes for the central bank, combined with appropriate actually implemented schemes, delegated policy enables zero inflation to prevail in economies in which it could not do so without delegated policy. These economies are ones that have relatively high discount rates (and so low discount factors).
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Suggested Citation

  • Zeno Rotondi & John Driffill, 2003. "Delegation of Monetary Policy: More than a Relocation of the Time-Inconsistency Problem," Computing in Economics and Finance 2003 292, Society for Computational Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:sce:scecf3:292
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.econ.bbk.ac.uk/faculty/driffill/jensennote-may03.pdf
    File Function: main text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Persson, Torsten & Tabellini, Guido, 1999. "Political economics and macroeconomic policy," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & M. Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 22, pages 1397-1482, Elsevier.
    2. McCallum, Bennett T, 1995. "Two Fallacies Concerning Central-Bank Independence," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(2), pages 207-211, May.
    3. McCallum, Bennett T., 1997. "Crucial issues concerning central bank independence," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 99-112, June.
    4. Backus, David & Driffill, John, 1985. "Inflation and Reputation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 75(3), pages 530-538, June.
    5. Barro, Robert J. & Gordon, David B., 1983. "Rules, discretion and reputation in a model of monetary policy," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 12(1), pages 101-121.
    6. Maurice Obstfeld & Kenneth S. Rogoff, 1996. "Foundations of International Macroeconomics," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262150476, April.
    7. Jensen, Henrik, 1997. "Credibility of Optimal Monetary Delegation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(5), pages 911-920, December.
    8. Herrendorf, Berthold, 1998. "Inflation Targeting as a Way of Precommitment," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 50(3), pages 431-448, July.
    9. Adam S. Posen, 1995. "Declarations Are Not Enough: Financial Sector Sources of Central Bank Independence," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1995, Volume 10, pages 253-274, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    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 Caleiro, 2004. "Economic Policies and Elections. A principal-agent point of view," Notas Económicas, Faculty of Economics, University of Coimbra, issue 20, pages 89-101, December.
    2. Ullrich, Katrin, 2003. "Unabhängigkeit und Verantwortlichkeit der Europäischen Zentralbank," ZEW Discussion Papers 03-65, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.

    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. Rotondi, Zeno, 2000. "Credibility of optimal monetary delegation: do we really need prohibitive reappointment costs?," Discussion Paper Series In Economics And Econometrics 0003, Economics Division, School of Social Sciences, University of Southampton.
    2. Rotondi, Zeno, 2000. "Credibility of optimal monetary delegation: do we really need prohibitive reappointment costs?," Discussion Paper Series In Economics And Econometrics 3, Economics Division, School of Social Sciences, University of Southampton.
    3. Francesco Salsano, 2005. "Monetary Policy in the Presence Of Imperfect Observability Of The Objectives Of Central Bankers," Birkbeck Working Papers in Economics and Finance 0523, Birkbeck, Department of Economics, Mathematics & Statistics.
    4. Mihov, Ilian & Sibert, Anne, 2006. "Credibility and Flexibility with Independent Monetary Policy Committees," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 38(1), pages 23-46, February.
    5. Ilian Mihov & Anne Sibert, 2002. "Credibility and Flexibility with Monetary Policy Committees," Working Papers 232002, Hong Kong Institute for Monetary Research.
    6. Persson, Torsten & Tabellini, Guido, 1999. "Political economics and macroeconomic policy," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & M. Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 22, pages 1397-1482, Elsevier.
    7. Herrendorf, Berthold, 1998. "Inflation Targeting as a Way of Precommitment," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 50(3), pages 431-448, July.
    8. Georgios Chortareas & Stephen Miller, 2004. "Optimal Central Banker Contracts and Common Agency," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 121(1), pages 131-155, October.
    9. repec:bla:jecsur:v:14:y:2000:i:5:p:513-26 is not listed on IDEAS
    10. Hayo, Bernd & Hefeker, Carsten, 2002. "Reconsidering central bank independence," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 18(4), pages 653-674, November.
    11. Basso, Henrique S., 2009. "Delegation, time inconsistency and sustainable equilibrium," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 33(8), pages 1617-1629, August.
    12. Chortareas, Georgios E & Miller, Stephen M, 2003. "Central Banker Contracts, Incomplete Information, and Monetary Policy Surprises: In Search of a Selfish Central Banker?," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 116(3-4), pages 271-295, September.
    13. 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).
    14. Ruge-Murcia, Francisco J, 2003. "Inflation Targeting under Asymmetric Preferences," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 35(5), pages 763-785, October.
    15. Masciandaro, Donato & Romelli, Davide, 2015. "Ups and downs of central bank independence from the Great Inflation to the Great Recession: theory, institutions and empirics," Financial History Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 22(3), pages 259-289, December.
    16. Donato Masciandaro & Davide Romelli, 2018. "Beyond the Central Bank Independence Veil: New Evidence," BAFFI CAREFIN Working Papers 1871, BAFFI CAREFIN, Centre for Applied Research on International Markets Banking Finance and Regulation, Universita' Bocconi, Milano, Italy.
    17. Muscatelli, V Anton, 1998. "Political Consensus, Uncertain Preferences, and Central Bank Independence," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 50(3), pages 412-430, July.
    18. Alberto Alesina & Alexander F. Wagner, 2006. "Choosing (and Reneging on) Exchange Rate Regimes," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 4(4), pages 770-799, June.
    19. Michael Berlemann, 2005. "Time inconsistency of monetary policy: Empirical evidence from polls," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 125(1), pages 1-15, July.
    20. Burkovskaya, Anastasia, 2019. "Political economy behind central bank independence," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 1-1.
    21. Donato Masciandaro & Davide Romelli, 2018. "To Be or not to Be a Euro Country? The Behavioural Political Economics of Currency Unions," BAFFI CAREFIN Working Papers 1883, BAFFI CAREFIN, Centre for Applied Research on International Markets Banking Finance and Regulation, Universita' Bocconi, Milano, Italy.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    credibility; delegation; time-inconsistency; independent central banks; monetary policy;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E31 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Price Level; Inflation; Deflation
    • E58 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Central Banks and Their Policies
    • 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:sce:scecf3:292. 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: Christopher F. Baum (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/sceeeea.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.