This paper considers fiscal and monetary policy in a short-run static macroeconomic model. There are two objectives, control of inflation and control over the growth of national wealth, and a third outcome of importance, a high level of employment. There are two instruments, monetary policy (the...

The paper evaluates some proposals for macroeconomic stabilization in an open economy, which take the form of simple rules. The first rule assigns monetary policy to inflation control and does not require fiscal intervention. The second rule adds fiscal control of a foreign wealth target to the...

Leith and Wren-Lewis (2007) have shown that government debt is returned to its pre-shock level in a New Keynesian model under optimal discretionary policy. This has two important implications for monetary and fiscal policy. First, in a high-debt economy, it may be optimal for discretionary...

This paper argues that a wealth target is an important feature of an economic policy package. A real exchange rate target can be used as an intermediate target to steer national wealth towards its desired value. Such a policy requires that fiscal policy be used to restrain inflation. This may be...

Empirical fiscal policy reaction functions based on ex-post data cannot be said to describe fiscal policymakers intentions because they utilise data which did not exist when their decisions were made. A characterisation of what fiscal policy makers were trying to do requires real time data. This...

The persistence of large trade and budget imbalances has led to increasing demands for protectionist policies. Despite a substantial theoretical literature there appears to be no empirical literature on the use of tariffs as a macroeconomic policy instrument. This paper fills that gap, using the...

The literature argues that the benefits of an independent Central Bank accrue at no cost to the real side. In this paper, we argue that the lack of correlation between monetary autonomy and output variability is due to the proactive role of fiscal policy when faced with rigid monetary...

In many countries two decision-making institutions, the government and the central bank, manage fiscal and monetary policy separately. Such decentralization can lead to a change in the optimal inflation-output trade-off. In fact lack of cooperation can result in a change in the position of the...

This paper studies the interactions of fiscal and monetary policy when they stabilise a single economy against shocks in a dynamic setting. We assume that fiscal and monetary policies both stabilise the economy only by causing changes to aggregate demand. Our findings are as follows. If the both...