The common central bank of a monetary union tends to lead a more accommodative monetary policy in order to avoid the default of the moderately indebted member countries whereas the most hardly indebted countries have to default. The optimal inflation rate increases the more numerous are the...

In the context of a new Keynesian macroeconomic model, this paper studies the monetary policy that should be conducted by the common central bank of a monetary union. In the event of inflationary supply shocks, the optimal monetary policy should be all the more contractionary as the inflation...