Both interest rates and inflation rates in the Euro area have reached levels dangerously close to zero. By the strategy of quantitative easing the ECB has been providing ample liquidity – yet without lasting success. Several asymmetries in policy transmission and monetary policy making have...

This paper analyses the major changes in both monetary and fiscal policy that have taken place over the past two decades and, within the limits of the existing empirical research, evaluates the overall costs and benefits for the OECD economies. The general findings for monetary policy are that,...

This study analyzes the effect of a money-financed policy for fiscal reform. We introduce a realistic setting in which real output is not given by an exogenous variable, but is determined by effective demand in a monetary growth model. Using this model, we compare the effects of the...

This paper analyzes optimal monetary policy under precommitment in a state-dependent pricing (SDP) environment. Under SDP, monopolistically competitive firms are allowed to endogenously change the timing of price adjustments. I show that this endogenous timing of price adjustment alters the...

Central banks, whether independent or not, may occasionally be subject to external pressures to change policy objectives. We analyze the optimal response of central banks to such pressures and the resulting macroeconomic consequences. We consider several alternative scenarios regarding policy...

Central banks, whether independent or not, may occasionally be subject to external pressures to change policy objectives. We analyze the optimal response of central banks to such pressures and the resulting macroeconomic consequences. We consider several alternative scenarios regarding policy...

The democratic accountability of policymaking institutions which are autonomous within delegated mandates has not received as much attention as their independence. We analyze in a theoretical model the effects of accountability in the form of possible overriding of economic policy decisions by...

This paper develops a simple framework to examine the budgetary implications of monetary policy measures. It further outlines, using this framework, the various channels of influence that tight monetary policy may have on the budget deficit. The cumulative effect might be quantitatively large...