Optimal Fiscal and Monetary Policy / V. V. Chari, Patrick J. Kehoe.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Chari, V. V.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Kehoe, Patrick J.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w6891.

NBER working paper series no. w6891

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Fiscal policy.

Monetary policy.

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 1999.

Cambridge, Massachusetts : National Bureau of Economic Research, 1999.

Summary:

We provide an introduction to optimal fiscal and monetary policy using the primal approach to optimal taxation. We use this approach to address how fiscal and monetary policy should be set over the long run and over the business cycle. We find four substantive lessons for policymaking: Capital income taxes should be high initially and then roughly zero; tax rates on labor and consumption should be roughly constant; state-contingent taxes on assets should be used to provide insurance against adverse shocks; and monetary policy should be conducted so as to keep nominal interest rates close to zero. We begin optimal taxation in a static context. We then develop a general framework to analyze optimal fiscal policy. Finally, we analyze optimal monetary policy in three commonly used models of money: a cash-credit economy, a money-in-the-utility-function economy

Notes:

Print version record

January 1999.