Comments on 'Active monetary policy, passive fiscal policy and the value of public debt: Some further monetarist arithmetic'

摘要

This very interesting and topical paper deals with the interaction between monetary and fiscal policy. The model assumes an active monetary policymaker and a passive fiscal policymaker, which means that the monetary policymaker actively controls infla tion whereas the fiscal policymaker takes the behavior of the monetary policymaker as given. The paper has a flavor of the Unpleasant Monetary Arithmetic (Sargent and Wallace, 1981) and the Fiscal Theory of the Price Level (Woodford, 2001). These two str ands analyze the possible consequences of undisciplined fiscal policy for the outcomes of monetary policy and offer a rationale for central-bank independence or imposing constraints on fiscal policy like the ones that are incorporated in the Maastricht T reaty. Von Thadden takes the desirability of such constraints as given and looks at the consequences of two different monetary policy regimes for the fiscal policymaker operating under such constraints.