Are the recessionary consequences of oil-price shocks due to oil-price shocks themselves or to contractionary monetary policies that arise in response to inflation concerns engendered by rising oil prices? Can systematic monetary policy be used to alleviate the consequences of oil shocks on the economy? This paper builds a dynamic general equilibrium model of monopolistic competition in which o...

This paper studies the determinacy properties of monetary and fiscal policy rules in a small-scale New Keynesian model. We modify the standard model in two ways. First, we allow positive public debt in the steady state as in Leeper [Journal of Monetary Economics 27, 129–147 (1991)]. Second, we add rule-of-thumb consumers as in Bilbiie [Journal of Economic Theory 140, 162–196 (2008)]. Leeper stu...

This paper examines under what conditions fiscal policy in the form of government spending should contribute to macroeconomic stabilisation. To this end optimal fiscal targeting rules minimising the microfounded social loss are examined in the following settings. Firstly, for the benchmark New Keynesian model, where monetary policy is unconstrained, a neutrality result for fiscal obtains: fisca...

This paper studies the design of monetary policy in a fiscal federation, such as the European Union. The focus of the analysis is the interaction between the fiscal policy of member countries (regions) and the monetary authority. Each of the countries structures its fiscal policy (spending and taxes) with the interests of its citizens in mind. Thus each country perceives a gain to shifting its ...

This paper considers a macroeconomic model with rational expectations in which prices are incompletely flexible. Markets therefore fail to clear. In such a model monetary policy is not neutral. The variance of real and nominal quantities and interest rates is sensitive to the parameters of the feedback rule that determines the money supply. The monetary policy that achieves the goat of minimizi...

In a sticky-price model in which money can potentially play a key role in business cycles, I estimate monetary policy preference parameters under commitment in a timeless perspective. Empirical findings suggest that inflation stabilization and interest rate smoothing are the main objectives of monetary policy, with a very small role for output gap stabilization. Though the money growth rate is ...

This paper compares the welfare costs of business cycles in a dollarized economy to those arising in economies with different monetary arrangements. The alternative monetary policy regimes studied belong to three broad families: devaluation rate rules, inflation targeting, and money growth rate rules. The analysis is conducted within an optimizing model of a small open economy with sticky price...