We compare alternative optimal public debt adjustment strategies in a New Keynesian economy. We find that the unconditionally optimal policy is consistent with a gradual adjustment in public debt towards its mean value at a speed determined by the rate of time preference of agents. To a...

In this paper we review and extend some of the key lessons that seem to be emerging from the Ramsey-inspired theory of dynamic optimal monetary and fiscal policies. We construct measures of the key distortions in our economy; we label these ‘dynamic wedges’. Inflation, actual or...

We analyze the characteristics of optimal dynamics in an economy in which neither prices nor wages adjust instantaneously and lump-sum taxes are unavailable as a source of government finance. We then propose that monetar and fiscal policy should be coordinated to satisfy a pair of simple...

We examine the impact of different degrees of fiscal feedback on debt in an economy with nominal rigidities where monetary policy is optimal. We look at the extent to which different degrees of fiscal feedback enhances or detracts from the ability of the monetary authorities to stabilise output...

We re-examine optimal monetary policy when lump-sum taxes are unavailable. Under commitment, we show that, with alternative utility functions to that considered in Nicolini’s related analysis, the direction of the incentive to cheat may depend on the initial level of government debt, with low...

Recent work on optimal policy in sticky price models suggests that demand management through fiscal policy adds little to optimal monetary policy. We explore this consensus assignment in an economy subject to ‘deep’ habits at the level of individual goods where the counter-cyclicality of...

We study a credible Markov-perfect monetary policy in an open New Keynesian economy with incomplete finacial markets. We demonstrate the existence of two discretionary equilibria. Following a shock the economy can be stabilised either 'quickly' or 'slow', both dynamic paths satisfy conditions of...

The timelessly optimal monetary policy proposed by Woodford (2003) may be dominated by alternative timeless policies. We provide a formal justification for these alternative policies. We demonstrate why discount rates do not matter and establish that optimizing over the unconditional expectation...

We study how the use of judgement or “add-factors?in forecasting may disturb the set of equilibrium outcomes when agents learn using recursive methods. We isolate conditions under which new phenomena, which we call exuberance equilibria, can exist in a standard self-referential...