 A comparison of monetary and fiscal policy interaction under ‘sound’ and ‘functional’ finance regimesJ. W. Mason and Arjun Jayadev Metroeconomica, 2018, vol. 69, issue 2, 488-508 Abstract: The interest rate and the fiscal balance can be thought of as two independent instruments to be assigned to two targets, the path of output and the path of public debt. Under what we term a ‘sound finance rule’ the interest rate targets output while the fiscal balance targets public debt; under a ‘functional finance rule’ the budget balance targets the output gap and the interest rate targets the debt ratio. The same unique combination of interest rate and fiscal balance will be consistent with output at potential and a constant debt†GDP ratio regardless of which instrument is assigned to which target. The stability characteristics of the two rules differ, however. At low levels of debt, both rules converge to the targets, but there is a threshold debt level above which only the functional finance rule converges. Contrary to conventional wisdom, therefore, the case for countercyclical fiscal policy becomes stronger, not weaker, when the ratio of public debt to GDP is already high. We apply our framework to describe the possibility of policy†generated cycles in the United States over the past five decades. Date: 2018 Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:metroe:v:69:y:2018:i:2:p:488-508 Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from Access Statistics for this article Metroeconomica is currently edited by Heinz D. Kurz and Neri Salvadori More articles in Metroeconomica from Wiley Blackwell |
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