I study the welfare performance of a policy regime of fiscal activism in which fiscal policy acts as an automatic stabilizer and controls inflation, while monetary policy pegs the nominal interest rate. When evaluated through the lens of a standard New Keynesian model, accounting for price and...

Blanchard (2005) suggested that active interest rate policy might induce unstable dynamics in highly-indebted economies. We examine this in a dynamic general equilibrium model where Calvo-type price rigidities provide a rationale for inflation stabilization. Unstable dynamics can occur when the...

We consider the properties of two monetary policy rules ('strict inflation targeting', 'constant money growth rule') in an intertemporal equilibrium model with flexible prices in which monetary policy is 'active', while fiscal policy is 'passive'. Specifically, we assume that the fiscal agent...