Designing fiscal and monetary institutions in a second-best world

This paper explores how fiscal and monetary policy interact if commitment and access to lump-sum taxation are limited. We analyze how equilibrium outcomes for inflation, employment, and public spending are affected by the structural features of an economy, such as money holdings, outstanding public debt, labor-market distortions, society s preferences, and the nature of the policy game. In a normative vein, we compare society s welfare across various institutional settings and investigate how society should optimally adjust the preferences of policymakers.Central Banks;Monetary Policy;Fiscal Policy;Independence;monetary economics

Debt stabilization in a Non-Ricardian economy

In models with a representative infinitely lived household, tax smoothing implies that the steady state of government debt should follow a random walk. This is unlikely to be the case in overlapping generations (OLG) economies, where the equilibrium interest rate may differ from the policy maker's rate of time preference. It may therefore be optimal to reduce debt today to reduce distortionary taxation in the future. In addition, the level of the capital stock in these economies is likely to be suboptimally low, and reducing government debt will crowd in additional capital. Using a version of the Blanchard-Yaari model of perpetual youth, with both public and private capital, we show that it is optimal in steady state for the government to hold assets. However, we also show how and why this level of government assets can fall short of both the level of debt that achieves the optimal capital stock and the level that eliminates income taxes. Finally, we compute the optimal adjustment path to this steady state

On Public Inefficiencies in a Mixed Duopoly

The aim of this paper is to investigate the welfare effect of a change in the public firm's objective function in oligopoly when the government takes into account the distortionary effect of rising funds by taxation (shadow cost of public funds). We analyze the impact of a shift from welfare- to profit-maximizing behaviour of the public firm on the timing of competition by endogenizing the determination of simultaneous (Nash-Cournot) versus sequential (Stackelberg) games using the game with observable delay proposed by Hamilton and Slutsky (1990). Differently from previous work that assumed the timing of competition, we show that, absent efficiency gains, instructing the public firm to play as a private one never increases welfare. Moreover, even when large efficiency gains result from the shift in public firm's objective, an inefficient public firm that maximizes welfare may be preferred.Mixed oligopoly; Nash equilibria; Endogenous Timing; Distortionary taxes

Rational solitons of wave resonant-interaction models

Integrable models of resonant interaction of two or more waves in 1+1 dimensions are known to be of applicative interest in several areas. Here we consider a system of three coupled wave equations which includes as special cases the vector nonlinear Schrödinger equations and the equations describing the resonant interaction of three waves. The Darboux-Dressing construction of soliton solutions is applied under the condition that the solutions have rational, or mixed rational-exponential, dependence on coordinates. Our algebraic construction relies on the use of nilpotent matrices and their Jordan form. We systematically search for all bounded rational (mixed rational-exponential) solutions and find a broad family of such solutions of the three wave resonant interaction equations

Mixed duopoly, privatization and the shadow costs of public funds

The purpose of this article is to investigate how the introduction of the shadow cost of public funds in the utilitarian measure of the economywide welfare affects the behavior of a welfare maximizer public firm in a mixed duopoly. We prove that when firms play simultaneously, the mixed-Nash equilibrium can dominate any Cournot equilibria implemented after a privatization, with or without efficiency gains. This can be true both in terms of welfare and of public firm's profit. When we consider endogenous timing, we show that either mixed- Nash, private leadership or both Stackelberg equilibria can result as subgameperfect Nash equilibria (SPNE). As a consequence, the sustainability of sequential equilibria enlarges the subspace of parameters such that the market performance with an inefficient public firm is better than the one implemented after a full-efficient privatization. Absent efficiency gains, privatization always lowers welfare

Privatization in oligopoly : the impact of the shadow cost of public funds

The aim of this paper is to investigate the welfare eect of privatization in oligopoly when the government takes into account the distortionary eect of rising funds by taxation (shadow cost of public funds). We analyze the impact of the change in ownership not only on the objective function of the rms, but also on the timing of competition by endogenizing the determination of simultaneous (Nash-Cournot) versus sequential (Stackelberg) games. We show that, absent effciency gains, privatization never increases welfare. Moreover, even when large effciency gains are realized, an ineffcient public rm may be preferred

The interaction of fiscal and monetary policy in a monetary union: Balancing credibility and flexibility

This paper explores how decentralized, national fiscal policies interact with a common monetary policy in a monetary union. We show that fiscal policy plays a more important ro le in stabilizing country-specific shocks than with national monetary policies. Whereas monetary u nification with an optimally designed central bank reduces both expected inflation and the varia nce of inflation, it harms overall welfare by reducing output and public spending and increasing the variability of these variables. However, international transfers may avoid this decline in welf are.Central Banks;Monetary Policy;Stabilization;Monetary Integration;Credibility;Fiscal Policy;monetary economics

Privatization in oligopoly : the impact of the shadow cost of public funds

The aim of this paper is to investigate the welfare effect of privatization in oligopoly when the government takes into account the distortionary effect of raising funds by taxation (shadow cost of public funds). We analyze the impact of the change in ownership not only on the objective function of the firms, but also on the timing of competition by endogenizing the determination of simultaneous (Nash-Cournot) versus sequential (Stackelberg) games. We show that, absent efficiency gains, privatization never increases welfare. Moreover, even when large efficiency gains are realized, an inefficient public firm may be preferred