Barbara Annicchiarico

Monetary Policy and Fiscal Rules

This paper presents a Dynamic New Keynesian model with wealth effects to study the performance of monetary policy under Ricardian and non-Ricardian fiscal regimes. The model is calibrated to euro area quarterly data. The interactions between fiscal policy and interest rate rules have critical implications for equilibrium uniqueness. Within the class of Ricardian fiscal rules, active monetary policies are not necessary for equilibrium determinacy. However, monetary authorities overreacting to inflation not only improve macroeconomic performance, but also generate similar outcomes under different fiscal rules. Conversely, under non-Ricardian fiscal regimes, interest rate pegs are predicted to reduce inflation variability.

Long-Term Growth and Short-Term Volatility: The Labour Market Nexus

We study the relationship between growth and variability in a DSGE model with nominal rigidities and growth driven by learning-by-doing. We show that this relationship may be positive or negative depending on the impulse source of fluctuations A key role is also played by the Frisch elasticity of labour supply and by institutional features of the labour market. Our general findings are that monetary shocks volatility will generally have a negative effect on growth, while the opposite tends to be true for fiscal and productivity shocks. These findings are somehow consistent with the existing empirical evidence: data show, in fact, a somewhat ambiguous relationship between output growth and real variability, but a generally negative relationship between output growth and nominal variability.

Fiscal Policy and Exchange Rates

This paper examines the dynamics of the nominal exchange rate and fiscal deficits in a continuous time optimizing general equilibrium model with finite horizon. It is shown that alternative financing modes of budget deficits imply different patterns of adjustment along the transitional path towards the steady state equilibrium. In particular, the respect of public solvency without money financing is not suffcient to avoid the depreciation of the exchange rate in the long-run after a fiscal expansion.

Productivity growth and volatility: how important are wage and price rigidities?

We study the implications of having different sources of nominal rigidities on the relationship between productivity growth and shocks volatility in a model with procyclical R&D and imperfect competition in goods and labour markets. We show that the effects of uncertainty on long-term growth not only depends on the source of fluctuations, as recent literature shows, but also, and crucially, on whether prices and/or wages are rigid.

Budget Deficits and Exchange-Rate Crises

This paper investigates currency crises in an optimizing general equilibrium model with overlapping generations. It is shown that a rise in government budget deficits financed by future taxes generates a decumulation of external assets, leading up to a speculative attack and forcing the monetary authorities to abandon the peg.

Country‐Specific Risk Premium, Taylor Rules, and Exchange Rates

The adoption of a Taylor-type monetary policy rule and an inflation target for emerging market economies that choose a flexible exchange rate regime is often advocated. This paper investigates the issue of exchange rate determination when interest-rate feedback rules are implemented in a continuous-time optimizing model of a small open economy facing an imperfect global capital market. It is demonstrated that when a risk premium on external debt affects the monetary policy transmission mechanism, the Taylor principle is not a necessary condition for determinacy of equilibrium. On the other hand, it is shown that exchange rate dynamics critically depends on whether monetary policy is active or passive.

Tax Reforms and the Underground Economy: A Simulation-Based Analysis

This paper studies the effects of several tax reforms in an economy in which taxes are partially evaded by means of undeclared work. To this purpose, we consider a two-sector dynamic general equilibrium model calibrated to Italy which explicitly accounts for underground production. We construct various tax reform scenarios, such as deductibility of labor costs from business tax, ex-ante budget-neutral tax shifts from direct to indirect taxes, and various tax cuts financed by decreases of government spending. We find the following results. First, neglecting the existence of the underground sector may lead to severely miscalculate the macroeconomic impact effects of tax reforms, especially in the short run, where policy interventions produce direct and indirect effects on the markup. Second, partial deductibility of labor costs from the business tax base proves to be highly expansionary and highly detrimental to the size of the underground sector. Third, the dimension of the underground sector is permanently and considerably reduced by changes in the tax mix that diminish the labor tax wedge. Finally, all the considered tax reforms take the public-debt-to-output ratio toward a prolonged downward path.

Assessing Policy Reforms for Italy Using ITEM and QUEST III

In this paper we assess the implications of policy reforms for the Italian economy by jointly using the Italian Treasury Econometric Model (ITEM) and QUEST III, the endogenous growth dynamic general equilibrium (DGE) model of the European Commission (DG ECFIN) in the version calibrated for Italy. We point out some of the key differences between the two models, highlighting some policy insights that DGE models can provide compared to those of traditional macro-econometric models. Their structural characteristics and the results of simulations are analyzed by using an array of shocks commonly examined in the evaluation of possible reforms. We show that two elements incorporated into the QUEST model play a key role in explaining the qualitative and quantitative differences among the two models in the dynamic responses to structural shifts, namely: the role of expectations in the transmission of reforms and the endogenous growth mechanism. We conclude that the joint consideration of the two models can improve our understanding of how the assessment of policy interventions is likely to be affected by the uncertainty surrounding model-based evaluation.

Interest Rate Pegs, Wealth Effects and Price Level Determinacy

This paper analyses the issue of price level determinacy in an optimising general equilibrium model with overlapping generations. It is shown that under a pure interest rate peg, wealth effects rule out nominal indeterminacy but give rise to multiple equilibria.

Innovation, Growth and Optimal Monetary Policy

This paper examines how the mechanism driving growth in the economy is likely to affect the optimal monetary policy response to shocks. We consider the Ramsey policy in a New Keynesian model in which growth is sustained by the creation of new patented technologies through R&D and we compare the results obtained with those arising when growth is exogenous. We find that optimal monetary policy must be counter-cyclical in face of both technology and public spending shocks, but the intensity of the reaction crucially depends on the underlying growth mechanism.