How Would Monetary Policy Look Like if John Rawls Had Been Hired as a Chairman of the Fed?

Marta Areosa, Waldyr Areosa and Pierre Monnin

No 447, Working Papers Series from Central Bank of Brazil, Research Department

Abstract: Using a textbook New Keynesian model extended with an inequality channel, we examine optimal monetary policy departing from the traditional utilitarian social welfare function, to consider alternative functions, including the Rawlsian approach of putting only weight to the agent with the lowest welfare level. Our main results show the optimal responses from a Rawlsian monetary authority are: (i) a less aggressive monetary tightening, but inducing a more pronounced drop in inflation after a monetary shock; (ii) a monetary policy easing after an increase in government spending and (iii) a more pronounced drop in the interest rate after a positive total factor productivity shock.

Date: 2016-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cba, nep-mac and nep-mon
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.bcb.gov.br/content/publicacoes/WorkingPaperSeries/wps447.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bcb:wpaper:447

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers Series from Central Bank of Brazil, Research Department
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Rodrigo Barbone Gonzalez (rodrigo.gonzalez@bcb.gov.br).