Monetary targeting with exchange rate constraints: the Bundesbank in the 1980's

Banks and banking - Germany ; Germany ; Monetary policy - Germany

Fiscal Rules and Fiscal Performance in the European Union and Japan

Fiscal rules specify quantitative targets for key budgetary aggregates. In this paper, we review the experience with such rules in Japan and in the European Union (EU). Comparing the performance of fiscal policy in the 1980s and 1990s until 2003, we find that the fiscal rule of the 1980s exerted some but not much disciplinary influence on Japanese fiscal policy. The fiscal rule of the Maastricht Treaty had a significant impact on political budget cycles in the EU, but did little to constrain fiscal policy in the large member states. Since the start of European Monetary Union, the disciplinary effect of the fiscal rule in the EU has vanished. Next, we discuss the importance of budgetary institutions for the effectiveness of fiscal rules. In Europe, a number of countries adopted strong fiscal rules, that is, a fiscal rule combined with a design of the budget process enabling governments to commit to the rule. We find that strong fiscal rules have been effective. We conclude with some suggestions for the design of a strong fiscal rule in Japan.

A Welfare Analysis of Capital Account Liberalization

We develop a model of a small open economy with credit market frictions to analyze the consequences of capital account liberalization. We show that financial opening facilitates the in ows of cheap foreign funds and improves production efficiency. Reforms increasing labor market exibility can further improve such efficiency gains. However, capital account liberalization also has important distributional consequences. Specifically, it may be impossible to use public transfers to fully compensate the loss of those negatively affected by capital account liberalization. This explains why financial opening often meets fierce opposition even though it leads to efficiency gains for the economy as a whole. From a practical perspective, capital controls should be lifted gradually for a smooth transition.Capital account liberalization, Capital controls, Financial frictions, Macroeconomic uctuations, Asset price overshooting

International Capital Flows with Limited Commitment and Incomplete Markets

Recent literature has proposed two alternative types of financial frictions, i.e., limited commitment and incomplete markets, to explain the patterns of international capital flows between developed and developing countries observed in the past two decades. This paper integrates both types of frictions into a two-country overlapping-generations framework to facilitate a direct comparison of their eects. In our model, limited commitment distorts the investment made by agents with different productivity, which creates a wedge between the interest rates on equity capital vs. credit capital; while incomplete markets distort the investment among projects with different riskiness, which creates a wedge between the risk-free rate and the mean rate of return to risky capital. We show that the two approaches are observationally equivalent with respect to their implications for international capital flows, production eciency, and aggregate output.financial development, financial frictions, foreign direct investment, incomplete markets, limited commitment, international capital flows

Monetary and Fiscal Policy in the European Monetary Union

The introductory phase of the European Monetary Union (EMU) ended with the introduction of the euro currency in 2002. We present a review of the experiences with the new monetary union. Using a Taylor rule, we analyze the conduct of monetary policy by the European Central Bank (ECB). The empirical results suggest that the ECB applies similar weights to inflation and the output gap as the Bundesbank in the past, but more than proportionate weight to economic developments in Germany and France. Next, we show that the link between monetary developments and inflation in the euro area is empirically very stable. ECB monetary policy was too loose in the first four years to keep inflation below the ECB's upper limit of 2 percent defining price stability. In the last section, we analyze the fiscal framework of EMU and show that it has not succeeded in safeguarding fiscal discipline, especially in the large member states.

Financial Development and International Capital Flows

We develop a general equilibrium model with nancial frictions in which internal capital (equity capital) and external capital (bank loans) have different rates of return. Financial development raises the rate of return on external capital but has a non-monotonic effect on the rate of return on internal capital. We then show in a two-country model that capital account liberalization leads to outflow of financial capital from the country with less developed financial system. However, the direction of foreign direct investment (FDI, henceforth) depends on the exact degrees of financial development in the two countries as well as the specific capital controls policy. Our model helps explain the Lucas Paradox (Lucas, 1990). Countries with least developed financial system have the outows of both financial capital and FDI;countries with most developed financial system witness two-way capital ows, i.e., the inflow of financial capital and the outow of FDI; countries with intermediate level of financial development have the outow of financial capital and the inflow of FDI. It is consistent with the fact that FDI ows not to the poorest countries but to the middle-income countries.Capital account liberalization, capital controls, financial frictions, foreign direct investment, Internal capital, External capital

Financial Development, International Capital Flows, and Aggregate Output

Published in Journal of Development Economics https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jdeveco.2013.08.010</p