Publication:
Price Volatility Under Alternative Monetary Instruments

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1993
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Facultad de Ciencias Económicas y Empresariales. Instituto Complutense de Análisis Económico (ICAE)
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When private agents have difficulty in interpreting price fluctuacions, they are led into suboptimal allocations of resources. Consequently, price uncertainty is an undesirable feature of a business cycle. However, the way how monetary po1icy is implemented may influence the size of the unpredictable component of price fluctuacions and hence, the welfare of the private agents in the economy. This paper addresses the long standing issue of the optimal choice of a monetary instrument under uncertainty. Ina money-in the-utility function modeL it is shown that this is far from being a purely monetary issue, and also that the optirnal choice of instrument depends on the fiscal policy in effect. If the Govemment collects enough taxes, relative to its expenditures, a nominal interest rate policy produces a more stable price level, the opposite being true when taxes are low, relative to Government expenditures.
Cuando los agentes económicos privados tienen dificultades para interpretar las fluctuaciones de precios, se producen asignaciones subóptimas de los recursos, por lo que la incertidumbre respecto a los precios constituye una característica no deseable de los ciclos económicos. Sin embargo, la forma de llevar a cabo la política monetaria puede ejercer una cierta influencia en la magnitud del componente no predecible de las fluctuaciones de precios y, por tanto, en el bienestar de los agentes privados de la economía. En este trabajo se aborda el tema de la elección óptima de los instrumentos monetarios en presencia de incertidumbre. Se muestra, en un modelo que incluye el dinero en la función de utilidad, cómo este tema está lejos de ser un tema puramente monetario, así como que dicha elección óptima depende de la política fiscal desarrollada. Si el gobierno recauda impuestos suficientes en relación a sus gastos, una política de tipo de interés nominal da lugar a un nivel de precios más estable; siendo cierto lo contrario cuando los ingresos por impuestos son bajos en comparación con los gastos.
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