The political economy of monetary policy making and central bank design
ISBN
978-0-387-74574-9
Type
book section
Date Issued
2008
Author(s)
Editor(s)
Rowley, Charles K.
Schneider, Friedrich G.
Abstract
There are few areas in which public choice has had as much success in making inroads into mainstream economics and, in particular, in influencing real-life developments as in the design of monetary institutions and the day-to-day conduct of monetary policy. This survey tracks these developments, from the humble beginnings in the 1970s related to Nordhaus' (1975) account of the opportunistic political business cycle to the widespread academic and political discussion on monetary policy rules and targets of today.2 The next section contains a compact review of the two classical ideas in political macroeconomics, the political business cycle and the inflation bias. We then move on to more modern stochastic models, in which the desire for undistorted stabilization of supply shocks calls for refined remedies to the time-inconsistency problem, such as performance contracts and inflation targets for central banks. The following section moves on to a discussion of current developments that focus on instrument and targeting rules for monetary policy. Finally, we briefly assess these developments.
Language
English
HSG Classification
contribution to scientific community
Refereed
No
Book title
Readings in Public Choice and Constitutional Political Economy
Publisher
Springer
Publisher place
New York, NY
Start page
423
End page
446
Pages
24
Subject(s)
Division(s)
Eprints ID
55713