This article studies the impact of alternative institutional configurations on economic performance when there is strategic interaction between the government and the central bank. The interaction between the fiscal and monetary authorities is modeled as a non-cooperative two-stage game. The...

The problem of monetary policy delegation is formulated as a two-stage game between the government and the central bank. In the first stage the government chooses the institutional design of the central bank. Monetary and fiscal policy are implemented in the second stage. When fiscal policy has...

In this paper, we explore whether heterogeneity among union members could threaten the stability of the EMU. The types of heterogeneity we consider are (1) asymmetries in the transmission of monetary and fiscal policies, and (2) differences in national preferences for price stability, output...

The problem of monetary policy delegation is formulated as a two-stage game between the government and the central bank. In the first stage the government chooses the institutional design of the central bank. Monetary and fiscal policy are implemented in the second stage. When fiscal policy is...

Uncertainties associated with the informational content of real-time data and the impact of policy initiatives on expectations have been offered as rationales for gradualism in monetary policy. Our objective is to assess these potential explanations quantitatively. Focusing on inflation as the...

We propose a methodology for constructing operational indices of inflation pressure, the monetary authority's effort to reduce this pressure, and the degree to which inflation pressure is alleviated. We begin with model independent definitions of these concepts. When our definitions are applied...

The problem of monetary policy delegation is formulated as a two-stage non-cooperative game between the government and the central bank. The solution to this policy game determines the optimal combination of central bank conservatism and independence. The results obtained show that the optimal...

In this article, benchmark Taylor rules are obtained as the solution to a dynamic programming problem in which interest rates are chosen to minimize the discounted sum of observed inflation and output variations. The properties of these benchmark rules are used to derive efficiency conditions...

In this article, we introduce an index of ex ante exchange market pressure (EMP) that can be used as a benchmark against which to measure the effectiveness of sterilized intervention. Ex ante EMP is the change in the exchange rate that would have been observed if the policy authority had...

The problem of monetary policy delegation is formulated as a two-stage non-cooperative game between the government and the central bank. The solution to this policy game determines the optimal combination of central bank conservatism and independence. The results show that the optimal...