Essays On Fiscal Policy Monetary Policy And Currency Unions

In this dissertation I study how economic activity outside of government control --informality-- impacts policy-making in a small open economy. I also study the impact of labor mobility in a currency union on the welfare of the union. Chapter 1 is concerned with the impact of informality on the Ramsey optimal fiscal and monetary policy. In particular, I ask: how does economic activity outside of government control affect the conduct of fiscal and monetary policy? I study this question in a New Keynesian, small open economy model. The model is assumed to feature informality in both goods and labor markets. A non-traded sector produces a non-taxed informal good. The traded sector produces a formal good and is subject to taxation, but it can hire workers using both formal and informal contracts. I show that the presence of informality decreases the optimal tax rate and increases macroeconomic volatility. Moreover, when the country cannot credibly precommit to the optimal policy, informality significantly increases the incentive to peg the currency. This result can help explain why many sub-Saharan African countries have plans to either expand existing currency unions or to form new ones. In Chapter 1 I also investigate the impact of the informal sector on fiscal policy: the tax rate levied by the government in the formal sector and the amount of public debt. With the steady state of the theoretical model described above, I show that the presence of informality decreases the optimal tax rate and increases the level of public debt. Using a panel data of developing countries, I empirically document the negative relationship between the size of the informal sector on the tax rate and its positive relationship with public debt. Chapter 2 is concerned with how migration within a currency union affects welfare across the union. In particular, I study this question in this paper with a New Keynesian currency union model. The union consists of two countries whose economies are characterized by labor market frictions. One country member has a higher job-finding rate and a lower unemployment rate compared to the other country, hence unemployed agents in the latter have an incentive to relocate to the former. I show that when firms have the ability to hire workers from abroad and when unemployed agents can relocate to a different country, the negative impact of asymmetric shocks is significantly reduced, improving welfare across the union on average.

Essays on Money, Banking and Regulation honors the interests and achievements of the Dutch economist Conrad Oort. The book is divided into four parts. Part 1 - Fiscal and monetary policy - reviews a variety of topics ranging from the measurement of money to the control and management of government expenditures. Part 2 - International institutions and international economic policy - looks at the international dimension of monetary and fiscal policy, with extensive discussion of the International Monetary Fund and the European Monetary Union. Part 3 - The future of international banking and the financial sector in the Netherlands - is an insider's view of the strategic choices facing financial institutions in the near future. Finally, Part 4 - Taxation and reforms in the Dutch tax system - is closest to Oort's research and practice since he has become known as an architect of the 1990 Dutch tax reform; this part is dedicated in particular to the tax reforms suggested by Oort.

This dissertation consists of three essays on monetary policy. The first essay estimates the impact of the European Central Bank's (ECB) monetary policy rate changes on individual member country's economic output in Eurozone. The results show that real output responds differently in different Eurozone members and highlight the "convergence gap" that continues to exist among member countries. Based on their output response, the sample countries are divided into two groups which exhibit the breakdown of monetary policy transmission mechanism in the currency union. The second essay uses the Taylor rule model to calculate the optimal interest rates for individual eurozone members based on their local economic variables of output gap and inflation rate. The results indicate that at the aggregate level the Taylor rule tracks the ECB policy rate very closely but when the rule is applied to individual Eurozone countries, the models predicts very different rates for member economies. Additionally, the Eurozone sample countries are organized into two sets of groups namely Core versus Periphery and North versus South to analyze whether the national monetary policy requirements of member countries can be grouped based upon their economic characteristics and on their geographical location. In both cases, the rule predicts different rates for the groups compared to the ECB policy rates. The third essay investigates the institutional arrangement of monetary policy and its interaction with macroprudential policy in economic and financial stability. The interactions of macroprudential policy with both monetary and fiscal policy are explored to determine the effectiveness of this new policy framework. The analysis shows that while political and budget support are essential for the policy's design and implementation, there should be no connection politically with the execution of macroprudential policy because of short-sightedness of the political process which could potentially delay or jeopardize the roll-out of the policy's tools when necessary. Overall, the dissertation contributes to the growing literature on monetary policy in currency unions and offers policy insights to overcome the obstacles of monetary policy transmission mechanism and to develop a more robust policy framework for economic and financial stability.

The papers in this book cover the wide range of Robert Triffin's expertise. For example, Jacques Larosire interprets the evolution of the international monetary system. Michel Aglietta critically appraises the international monetary system and suggests the present system is one that does not constrain domestic policy choices. The desirability, scope and means of policy co-ordination are analyzed in the contributions by James Tobin, Robert Solomon, John Williamson, Alexandre Lamfalussy and Wolfgang Rieke. Tommaso Padoa-Schioppa discusses the possible paths to European Monetary Union whilst Alfred Steinherr and Jacques Girard evaluate the past and future evolution of the ECU. Paul De Grauwe provides empirical answers to the highly debated question whether the EMS is a DM-zone.

During his distinguished career at the IMF, Jacques J. Polak served as both Director of Research and, subsequently as a member of the IMF Executive Board. His distinct contribution to the discipline of international financial policy is highlighted in this book edited by Jacob A. Frenkel and Morris Goldstein. The papers included were prepared for a conference, cosponsored by the Netherlands Bank and the IMF, held in Polak's honor in Washington, D.C., in January 1991.

Econometric techniques and models are still being extensively used in the business of forecasting and policy advice. This book presents recent advances in the theory and applications of quantitative economic policy, with particular emphasis on fiscal and monetary policies in a European and global context. The volume honors Andrew Hughes Hallett, a pioneer and major scientist in quantitative economic policy analysis, whose contributors are among his friends and former students.

Monetary Stability through International Cooperation contains essays written by high ranking policy makers in the field of central banking and international finance, written in honour of André Szász, who has been Executive Director of De Nederlandsche Bank since 1973, responsible for international monetary relations. Colleagues from several other central banks, from finance ministries and from international institutions pay tribute to him by analysing the conditions fostering European as well as global monetary stability. The book provides an inside view of the thinking of monetary officials at the turn of 1993/1994, when the currency turmoil in the ERM of mid-1993 had subsided and views on its implications for exchange rate management and, more generally, for European integration were taking shape. Topics include exchange rate stabilisation, policy coordination and central bank independence. A second section, on the international monetary system, includes essays on the policy implications of present day dynamic financial markets as well as the role of the IMF. This book, written by `insiders for an insider', provides valuable insights to those who are interested in contemporary international monetary relations.

Putting the matters back into money matters is David Laidler's intent in this collection of ten essays on the role of monetary institutions in the development of monetary theory and the implications of these ideas for policy. Together, the essays provide a coherent and accessible introduction to the power and range of thinking by one of the world's leading monetary economists. In Taking Money Seriously Laidler seeks to develop and sustain monetarist ideas of the 1960s in relationship to the new classical economics and to argue their continued policy relevance. Money matters, he points out, because monetary exchange rather than the Walrasian market coordinates economic activity in the real world. Laidler's discussion of the costs of inflation points up the importance of money's means-of-exchange role and is followed by an extended critique of new classical economics. He devotes several chapters to policy issues, in which he asserts that the monetary system is a public good whose organization and control present inherently political problems. David Laidler is Professor of Economics at the University of Western Ontario.