Neil Wallace

Rational Expectations, the Optimal Monetary Instrument, and the Optimal Money Supply Rule

Alternative monetary policies are analyzed in an ad hoc macroeconomic model in which the publics expectations about prices are rational. The ad hoc model is one in which there is long-run neutrality, since it incorporates the aggregate supply schedule proposed by Lucas. Following Poole, the paper studies whether pegging the interest rate or pegging the money supply period by period minimizes an ad hoc quadratic loss function. It turns out that the probility distribution of output--dispersion as well as mean--is independent of the particular deterministic money supply rule in effect, and that under an interest rate rule the price level is indeterminate.

Some Unpleasant Monetarist Arithmetic

Contrary to the conclusion of Sargent and Wallace, it is possible to exogenously and independently vary monetary and fiscal policy and retain steady-state equlibrium in economies like the United States. In particular,the central bank is not forced to monetize increased deficits either now or in the future. This conclusion is based on the fact that the real after-tax yield on government bonds is considerably less than the growth rate of real income except during brief disinflationary periods.In his presidential address to the American Economic Association (AEA), Milton Friedman (1968) warned not to expect too much from monetary policy. In particular, Friedman argued that monetary policy could not permanently influence the levels of real output, unemployment, or real rates of return on securities. However, Friedman did assert that a monetary authority could exert substantial control over the inflation rate, especially in the long run. The purpose of this paper is to argue that, even in an economy that satisfies monetarist assumptions, if monetary policy is interpreted as open market operations, then Friedman’s list of the things that monetary policy cannot permanently control may have to be expanded to include inflation.

Rational expectations and the theory of economic policy

There is no longer any serious debate about whether monetary policy should be conducted according to rules or discretion. Quite appropriately, it is widely agreed that monetary policy should obey a rule, that is, a schedule expressing the setting of the monetary authority’s instrument (e.g., the money supply) as a function of all the information it has received up through the current moment. Such a rule has the happy characteristic that in any given set of circumstances, the optimal setting for policy is unique. If by remote chance, the same circumstances should prevail at two different dates, the appropriate settings for monetary policy would be identical.

On the Indeterminacy of Equilibrium Exchange Rates

In this paper we consider a particular international economic policy regime: the laissez-faire regime, the distinguishing features of which are unrestricted portfolio choice and floating exchange rates. And as we show, this regime, although favored by many economists, is not economically feasible. It does not have a determinate equilibrium. That is an implication of an overlapping-generations model. More basically, it is an implication of the notion that money is wanted only in order to accomplish trades.

Whither Monetary Economics

I argue that monetary economics should be pursued by applying implementation theory to models which contain explicit frictions that make money essential. The argument has two parts. First, I argue that models in which real balances are assumed to be productive--models with money in utility or production functions or with cash-in-advance constraints--contain hidden inconsistencies. Second, I argue that the approach advocated is capable of providing new insights about some of the main issues in monetary economics: the effects of monetary shocks, the welfare cost of inflation, and the roles of inside and outside money. Copyright 2001 by American Economic Association.

Inside and outside money as alternative media of exchange

We study a random matching model of money in which a subset of people, called bankers, have known histories and the rest, called nonbankers, have unknown histories. Earlier, we showed that if there are no outside assets, then an optimal arrangement has bankers issuing objects, banknotes, that are used in trades involving nonbankers. Here, the same model is used to compare such exclusive use of inside money to the exclusive use of outside money. We show that the set of implementable outcomes using outside money is a strict subset of the set using inside money.

Coexistence of money and interest-bearing securities

A random matching model with money is used to study the nominal yield on small denomination, bearer, safe, discount securities issued by the government. There is always one steady state with matured securities circulating at par and, for some parameters, another with them circulating at a discount. In the former, a necessary and sufficient condition for a positive nominal yield on not-yet-matured securities is exogenous discriminatory treatment of them by the government. In the latter, the post-maturity discount on securities induces a deeper pre-maturity discount even without such discriminatory treatment.

Existence of Steady States with Positive Consumption in the Kiyotaki-Wright Model

We prove the general existence of steady states with positive consumption in an N goods and fiat money version of the Kiyotaki-Wright model by admitting mixed strategies. We also show that there always exists a steady state in which everyone accepts a least costly-to-store object. In particular, if fiat money is one such object, then there always exists a monetary steady state. We also establish some other properties of steady states and comment on the relationship between steady states and (incentive) feasible allocations.

A Price Discrimination Analysis of Monetary Policy

Monetary policy is analysed within a model that appeals to legal restrictions on private intermediation to explain the coexistence of currency and interest-bearing default-free bonds. The interaction between such legal restrictions and monetary policy is illustrated in a version of the overlapping generations model. The model shows that legal restrictions and the use of both currency and bonds permit the government to levy a nonlinear inflation tax and that such a tax may be better in terms of the Pareto criterion than a linear inflation tax.

The Inefficiency of Interest-bearing National Debt

The coexistence of money and default-free interest-bearing government bonds is explained by transaction costs; the private sector absorbs money with less real difficulty than it absorbs bonds. Under the assumption that the costs of issuing money and issuing bonds are identical, it follows that the presence of government bonds is inefficient. Further, the steady-state inflation rate is higher with bond financing of a given real deficit because there is less net output, less real saving, and hence the need for the government to inflate faster. This is demonstrated in a version of Samuelsons pure consumption-loans model.