Essays on Inflation Expectations, Monetary Policy and Tax Reform PDF Download

Author: Kerstin Westergren
Publisher:
ISBN: 9789150628852
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Author: Ayse Zeyneti Kabukcuoglu
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 336

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In the first chapter, I quantify the welfare effect of eliminating the U.S. capital income tax under international financial integration. I employ a two-country, heterogeneous-agent incomplete markets model calibrated to represent the U.S. and the rest of the world. Short-run and long-run factor price dynamics are key: after the tax reform, post-tax interest rate increases less under financial openness relative to autarky. Therefore the wealth-rich households gain less. Post-tax wages also fall less, so the wealth-poor are hurt less. Hence, the fraction in favor of the reform increases, although the majority still prefers the status quo. Aggregate welfare effect to the U.S. is a permanent 0.2 % consumption equivalent loss under financial openness which is 85.5 % smaller than the welfare loss under autarky. The second chapter aims to answer two questions: What helps forecast U.S. inflation? What causes the observed changes in the predictive ability of variables commonly used in forecasting US inflation? In macroeconomic analysis and inflation forecasting, the traditional Phillips curve has been widely used to exploit the empirical relationship between inflation and domestic economic activity. Atkeson and Ohanian (2001), among others, cast doubt on the performance of Phillips curve-based forecasts of U.S. inflation relative to naive forecasts. This indicates a difficulty for policy-making and private sectorâs long term nominal commitments which depend on inflation expectations. The literature suggests globalization may be one reason for this phenomenon. To test this, we evaluate the forecasting ability of global slack measures under an open economy Phillips curve. The results are very sensitive to measures of inflation, forecast horizons and estimation samples. We find however, terms of trade gap, measured as HP-filtered terms of trade, is a good and robust variable to forecast U.S. inflation. Moreover, our forecasts based on the simulated data from a workhorse new open economy macro (NOEM) model indicate that better monetary policy and good luck (i.e. a remarkably benign sample of economic shocks) can account for the empirical observations on forecasting accuracy, while globalization plays a secondary role.

Author: Thomas M. Humphrey
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Inflation (Finance)
Languages : en
Pages : 184

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Author: Michael D. Bordo
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226066959
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 545

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Controlling inflation is among the most important objectives of economic policy. By maintaining price stability, policy makers are able to reduce uncertainty, improve price-monitoring mechanisms, and facilitate more efficient planning and allocation of resources, thereby raising productivity. This volume focuses on understanding the causes of the Great Inflation of the 1970s and ’80s, which saw rising inflation in many nations, and which propelled interest rates across the developing world into the double digits. In the decades since, the immediate cause of the period’s rise in inflation has been the subject of considerable debate. Among the areas of contention are the role of monetary policy in driving inflation and the implications this had both for policy design and for evaluating the performance of those who set the policy. Here, contributors map monetary policy from the 1960s to the present, shedding light on the ways in which the lessons of the Great Inflation were absorbed and applied to today’s global and increasingly complex economic environment.

Author: Peter J. N. Sinclair
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135179778
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 402

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Inflation is regarded by the many as a menace that damages business and can only make life worse for households. Keeping it low depends critically on ensuring that firms and workers expect it to be low. So expectations of inflation are a key influence on national economic welfare. This collection pulls together a galaxy of world experts (including Roy Batchelor, Richard Curtin and Staffan Linden) on inflation expectations to debate different aspects of the issues involved. The main focus of the volume is on likely inflation developments. A number of factors have led practitioners and academic observers of monetary policy to place increasing emphasis recently on inflation expectations. One is the spread of inflation targeting, invented in New Zealand over 15 years ago, but now encompassing many important economies including Brazil, Canada, Israel and Great Britain. Even more significantly, the European Central Bank, the Bank of Japan and the United States Federal Bank are the leading members of another group of monetary institutions all considering or implementing moves in the same direction. A second is the large reduction in actual inflation that has been observed in most countries over the past decade or so. These considerations underscore the critical – and largely underrecognized - importance of inflation expectations. They emphasize the importance of the issues, and the great need for a volume that offers a clear, systematic treatment of them. This book, under the steely editorship of Peter Sinclair, should prove very important for policy makers and monetary economists alike.

Author: Charles Freedman
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
ISBN: 145187233X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 27

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This is the second chapter of a forthcoming monograph entitled "On Implementing Full-Fledged Inflation-Targeting Regimes: Saying What You Do and Doing What You Say." We begin by discussing the costs of inflation, including their role in generating boom-bust cycles. Following a general discussion of the need for a nominal anchor, we describe a specific type of monetary anchor, the inflation-targeting regime, and its two key intellectual roots-the absence of long-run trade-offs and the time-inconsistency problem. We conclude by providing a brief introduction to the way in which inflation targeting works.

Author: Mr.Paul R. Masson
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
ISBN: 145185515X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 54

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Inflation targeting (IT) serves as monetary policy framework in several advanced economies, where it has enhanced policy transparency and accountability. The paper considers its wider applicability to developing countries. The prerequisites for a successful IT framework are identified as an ability to carry out an independent monetary policy (free of fiscal dominance or commitment to another nominal anchor, like the exchange rate) and a quantitative framework linking policy instruments to inflation. These prerequisites are largely absent among developing countries, though several of them could with some further institutional changes and an overriding commitment to low inflation make use of an IT framework.

Author: International Monetary Fund
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
ISBN: 1451844239
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 33

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Recently, monetary authorities have increasingly focused on implementing policies to ensure price stability and strengthen central bank independence. Simultaneously, in the fiscal area, market development has allowed public debt managers to focus more on cost minimization. This “divorce” of monetary and debt management functions in no way lessens the need for effective coordination of monetary and fiscal policy if overall economic performance is to be optimized and maintained in the long term. This paper analyzes these issues based on a review of the relevant literature and of country experiences from an institutional and operational perspective.

Author: John B. Taylor
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226791262
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 460

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This timely volume presents the latest thinking on the monetary policy rules and seeks to determine just what types of rules and policy guidelines function best. A unique cooperative research effort that allowed contributors to evaluate different policy rules using their own specific approaches, this collection presents their striking findings on the potential response of interest rates to an array of variables, including alterations in the rates of inflation, unemployment, and exchange. Monetary Policy Rules illustrates that simple policy rules are more robust and more efficient than complex rules with multiple variables. A state-of-the-art appraisal of the fundamental issues facing the Federal Reserve Board and other central banks, Monetary Policy Rules is essential reading for economic analysts and policymakers alike.

Author: Robert E. Hall
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226313255
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 302

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This volume presents the latest thoughts of a brilliant group of young economists on one of the most persistent economic problems facing the United States and the world, inflation. Rather than attempting an encyclopedic effort or offering specific policy recommendations, the contributors have emphasized the diagnosis of problems and the description of events that economists most thoroughly understand. Reflecting a dozen diverse views—many of which challenge established orthodoxy—they illuminate the economic and political processes involved in this important issue.