In many countries, government-budget surpluses have led to a decline in the amount of federal government debt outstanding. This paper considers the consequences of this development for a central bank that conducts monetary policy through open market operations in treasury debt. A model is...

This paper studies monetary and fiscal policy rules, and investigates the characteristics of optimal policies. The central focus of the paper is on the comparison of two types of fiscal rules: a balanced budget and a target for the primary surplus. Balanced budget rules (or, more generally,...

Economic policies are known to have different effects on the economy depending on the size of policy changes and on business cycle conditions. For example, monetary policy might be more stimulative in recessions and around turning points in the business cycle than during expansions. Such...

A growing body of evidence finds that policy reaction functions vary substantially over different periods in the United States. This paper explores how moving to an environment in which monetary and fiscal regimes evolve according to a Markov process can change the impacts of policy shocks. In...