The desirability of fiscal constraints in monetary unions depends critically on whether the monetary authority can commit to follow its policies. If it can commit, then debt constraints can only impose costs. If it cannot commit, then fiscal policy has a free-rider problem, and debt constraints may be desirable. This type of free-rider problem is new and arises only because of a time inconsiste...

We use a dynamic factor model to provide a semi-structural representation for 101 quarterly US macroeconomic series. We find that (i) the US economy is well described by a number of structural shocks between two and six. Focusing on the four-shock specification, we identify, using sign restrictions, two non-policy shocks, demand and supply, and two policy shocks, monetary and fiscal. We obtain ...

Jointly identifying the effects of both fiscal and monetary policy shocks in an open economy structural VAR poses identification challenges. The innovations in this paper are to combine the methods of identification via sign restrictions, cointegration and traditional exclusion restrictions within a system which explicitly accounts for both stationary and non-stationary variables. This incorpor...

The objective of this study is to investigate the behaviour of monetary and fiscal authorities in the Euro area. Our main contribution is joint modelling of behaviour of the two authorities. Our investigation highlights a number of facts. The systematic monetary policies adopted by the non-German authorities in the seventies were not capable of stabilizing inflation. Such results has been achie...

The interaction between fiscal and monetary policy is analyzed by means of a game theoretical approach. The coordination between those two policies is essential, since decisions taken by one institution may have disastrous effects on the other one, resulting in welfare loss for the society. We derived optimal monetary and fiscal policies in context of three coordination schemes: when each insti...

The U.S. federal government is facing the prospect of exponentially rising entitlement obligations that are threatening to push the debt-to-GDP ratio to historically unparalleled levels. In an effort to understand the economic consequences of these projected debt run-ups, this paper takes a stand on how future policy must adjust and examines its implications for the aggregate economy. Assuming ...

In the early postwar years, during the heyday of fiscal fine-tuning, monetary policy was not widely considered a particularly interesting or important topic. The predominant view was that the main function of monetary policy was to “stimulate” debt-financed purchases by keeping interest rates low. Inflation was first considered a useful lubricant to be traded for lower unemployment, and inflati...

Under EMU,monetary policy is oriented towards union-wide economic conditions, and cannot effectively address country-specific macroeconomic disturbances. Should national fiscal policy be used more actively, for stabilizing individual economies, now that exchange rate changes among member countries are no longer possible? Several recent studies answer this important normative question, based on ...