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Working Paper
Financial Integration and Monetary Policy Coordination
Financial integration generates macroeconomic spillovers that may require international monetary policy coordination. We show that individual central banks may set nominal interest rates too low or too high relative to the cooperative outcome. We identify three sufficient statistics that determine whether the Nash equilibrium exhibits under-tightening or over-tightening: the output gap, sectoral differences in labor intensity, and the trade balance response to changes in nominal rates. Independently of the shocks hitting the economy, we find that under-tightening is possible during economic ...
Working Paper
Stagflation and Topsy-Turvy Capital Flows
Are unregulated capital flows excessive during a stagflation episode? We argue that they likely are, owing to a macroeconomic externality operating through the economy’s supply side. Inflows raise domestic wages through a wealth effect on labor supply and cause unwelcome upward pressure on marginal costs in countries where monetary policy is trying to drive down costs to stabilize inflation. Yet, market forces are likely to generate such inflows. Optimal capital flow management instead requires net outflows, suggesting topsy-turvy capital flows following markup shocks.
Working Paper
A Theory of Fear of Floating
Many central banks whose exchange rate regimes are classified as flexible are reluctant to let the exchange rate fluctuate. This phenomenon is known as “fear of floating”. We present a simple theory in which fear of floating emerges as an optimal policy outcome. The key feature of the model is an occasionally binding borrowing constraint linked to the exchange rate that introduces a feedback loop between aggregate demand and credit conditions. Contrary to the Mundellian paradigm, we show that a depreciation can be contractionary, and letting the exchange rate float can expose the economy ...
Working Paper
Liquidity Traps, Prudential Policies, and International Spillovers
We present a simple open economy framework to study the transmission channels of monetary and macroprudential policies and evaluate the implications for international spillovers and global welfare. Using an analytical decomposition, we first identify three transmission channels: intertemporal substitution, expenditure switching, and aggregate income. Quantitatively, expenditure switching plays a prominent role for monetary policy, while macroprudential policy operates almost entirely through intertemporal substitution. Turning to the normative analysis, we show that the risk of a liquidity ...
Report
Financial Safety Nets
In this paper, we study the optimal design of financial safety nets under limited private credit. We ask when it is optimal to restrict ex ante the set of investors that can receive public liquidity support ex post. When the government can commit, the optimal safety net covers all investors. Introducing a wedge between identical investors is inefficient. Without commitment, an optimally designed financial safety net covers only a subset of investors. Compared to an economy where all investors are protected, this results in more liquid portfolios, better social insurance, and higher ex ante ...