In the last few years papers have begun to analyse optimal monetary and fiscal policy in models incorporating nominal rigidities where social welfare is derived from the utility of agents. This article examines whether this analysis provides support for the consensus assignment, where monetary...

In this article we consider two arguments suggesting that monetary authorities in an open economy should target output price inflation and not consumer price inflation. The first suggests that output price inflation corresponds to the distortions caused by price rigidity. The second shows how...

The Fiscal Stability Pact for EMU implies that constraints on fiscal policy facilitate inflation control. In this paper we identify two stable policy regimes. When monetary policy seeks to raise real interest rates in response to excess inflation, a self-stabilising fiscal policy is required to...

This article assesses the implications of discounting on a result derived by Bean (1998): that in a model of monetary policy where policy acts with a lag, the outcomes of monetary policy are very similar for a wide range of preferences of the monetary authority with respect to inflation and...

This article examines the rationale for the World Bank and explores whether its objective is best served by its current mix of activities. We are critical of the Bank's reliance on conditionality, and advocate evolution into a Knowledge Bank, which would lend with few conditions to countries...