Coordination des politiques budgétaires et monétaires dans l'uem en présence de chocs et d'informations asymétriques

This paper analyzes strategic interactions between the European Central Bank and member countries of the euro area in a model where governments have private information about the current state of their economy. We study the consequences of such information asymmetries on fiscal and monetary decisions, and we examine governments?' incentive to manipulate information. We show that, even if the central bank maximizes the social welfare and if governments are not biased towards excessive public deficits, these latter always have an incentive to reveal incorrect information. Besides, a revealing equilibrium exists if information transmission is costly, when there is a fiscal leadership, but associated decisions remain sub-optimal. We conclude that a decentralized information system is not efficient when European business cycles are not synchronized.Classification JEL : C72, D82, E42, E52.