Monetary and Fiscal Policies in Times of Large Debt: Unity is Strength
Francesco Bianchi,
Renato Faccini and
Leonardo Melosi
No 14720, CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers
Abstract:
The COVID pandemic found policymakers facing constraints on their ability to react to an exceptionally large negative shock. The current low interest rate environment limits the tools the central bank can use to stabilize the economy, while the large public debt curtails the efficacy of fiscal interventions by inducing expectations of costly fiscal adjustments. Against this background, we study the implications of a coordinated fiscal and monetary strategy aiming at creating a controlled rise of inflation to wear away a targeted fraction of debt. Under this coordinated strategy, the fiscal authority introduces an emergency budget with no provisions on how it will be balanced, while the monetary authority tolerates a temporary increase in inflation to accommodate the emergency budget. In our model the coordinated strategy enhances the efficacy of the fiscal stimulus planned in response to the COVID pandemic and allows the Federal Reserve to correct a prolonged period of below-target inflation. The strategy results in only moderate levels of inflation by separating long-run fiscal sustainability from a short-run policy intervention.
Keywords: Monetary policy; Fiscal policy; Emergency budget; Shock specific rule; Covid (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E30 E50 E62 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dge, nep-mac and nep-mon
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (40)
Downloads: (external link)
https://cepr.org/publications/DP14720 (application/pdf)
CEPR Discussion Papers are free to download for our researchers, subscribers and members. If you fall into one of these categories but have trouble downloading our papers, please contact us at subscribers@cepr.org
Related works:
Working Paper: Monetary and Fiscal Policies in Times of Large Debt: Unity is Strength (2020) 
Working Paper: Monetary and Fiscal Policies in Times of Large Debt: Unity is Strength (2020) 
Working Paper: Monetary and Fiscal Policies in Times of Large Debt: Unity is Strength (2020) 
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:cpr:ceprdp:14720
Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
https://cepr.org/publications/DP14720
Access Statistics for this paper
More papers in CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers Centre for Economic Policy Research, 33 Great Sutton Street, London EC1V 0DX.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().