Category Fiscal policy
Where is a Kenneth Carter When You Need One?
I would imagine that the name Kenneth Carter is not well known outside of a narrow range of economic specialists and accountants working in the tax or public finance area. Kenneth Carter was appointed in 1962 by a Conservative Prime Minister – John Diefenbaker – to examine and report on the federal tax system. The […]
The relation between ZLB, NGDP, QE, and G
Nothing new here. This is just a brief summary of my views:
How can we know if government spending is money-financed?
I have a proposal that would improve aggregate demand management. I call my proposal "money-financed government expenditure on sacrificing goats". I propose that every time the government sacrifices one goat, the Bank of Canada is required by law to increase the base money supply permanently by $1 billion, relative to what it would otherwise have […]
Balancing the Premiers
Apparently, ten out of ten premiers (13 out of 13 if we count the territories) can agree that Canada is suffering from a “fiscal imbalance” between Ottawa and the provinces. At their annual meetings, which are wrapping up in Charlottetown today, the provincial premiers are arguing that since the Federal budget is moving into surplus […]
The ECB cannot move last
I think this diagram helps us understand the Eurozone problem in simple game-theoretic terms:
Second best monetary and fiscal policy and the strategy space
[This post covers too much ground and stretches my brain too far. I'm trying to put Lipsey-Lancaster and game theory together, and apply it to monetary-fiscal. I blame Brad DeLong for making me think about this.] Brad DeLong says: "But as long as Nick Rowe recognizes that fixing situations of depressed activity by simply printing […]
Money, prices, and coordination failures
[This is very long, and covers a lot of old ground for me, as well as some new. It was supposed to be a belated reply to Brad DeLong's post. But my thoughts wandered. (By the way, for some reason I never remember being annoyed at Simon Wren-Lewis, even when I disagree with him; but […]
When is helicopter money optimal?
Money is fungible. And things get lost in translation, especially between micro and macro. "Helicopter money" is when the central bank prints money, gives it to the government, and the government gives it to everyone, as a freebie. When is helicopter money optimal?
On not quite getting Lloyd Metzler
30 years ago, IIRC, my colleague Steve Ferris said I should read Lloyd Metzler's Wealth, Saving, and the Rate of Interest, because he thought it was a great paper. Yesterday Brad DeLong said the same thing. David Glasner also thinks it's a classic paper. When three very good but very different economists recommend a paper […]
The continuum from monetary to fiscal
Simon Wren-Lewis says (in response to right-deviationist David Beckworth): "Now this does not mean that Market Monetarists and New Keynesians suddenly agree about everything. A key difference is that for David this [fiscal policy at the ZLB] is an insurance against incompetence by the central bank, whereas Keynesians are as likely to view hitting the […]
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