Monetary Policy Arithmetic: Some Recent Contributions

Sargent and Wallace (1981) study the feasibility of a bond-financed increase in government spending. In their "unpleasant monetarist arithmetic," Sargent and Wallace show how using bonds to finance a permanent deficit today may necessitate faster money growth in the future, yielding higher inflation today. The logic behind this spectacular result is predicated on the satisfaction of one crucial condition: the real interest rate offered on bonds has to exceed the real growth rate of the economy. Joydeep Bhattacharya and Joseph Haslag review some recent contributions to the literature on the subject in light of the contentious nature of this stricture. The authors derive the unpleasant monetarist arithmetic result by employing a weaker set of necessary conditions than those Sargent-Wallace use. In addition, the authors consider the possibility of financing the deficit by changing reserve requirements instead of raising money growth rates. Interestingly, a pleasant version of the financing arithmetic emerges.