International Coordination Of Fiscal Policies

International coordination of macroeconomic policies has attracted much attention in recent years. The main issue has been whether economic performance can be improved by coordination Although it is still a controversial issue many economists have argued that coordination would make a positive contribution to economic performance. This paper deals with the requirements for successful fiscal coordination. It concludes that those requirements are such that the best fiscal policies that countries can pursue are those aimed at putting their houses in order.

This book studies the international coordination of monetary and fiscal policies in the world economy. It carefully discusses the process of policy competition and the structure of policy cooperation. As to policy competition, the focus is on monetary and fiscal competition between Europe and America. Similarly, as to policy cooperation, the focus is on monetary and fiscal cooperation between Europe and America. The spillover effects of monetary policy are negative while the spillover effects of fiscal policy are positive. The policy targets are price stability and full employment. The policy makers follow either cold-turkey or gradualist strategies. Policy expectations are adaptive or rational. The world economy consists of two, three or more regions. The present book is part of a larger research project on European Monetary Union, see the references at the back of the book. Some parts of this project were presented at the World Congress of the International Economic Association in Lisbon. Other parts were presented at the International Institute of Public Finance, at the Macro Study Group of the German Economic Association, at the Annual Meeting of the Austrian Economic Association, at the Gottingen Workshop on International Economics, at the Halle Workshop on Monetary Economics, at the Research Seminar on Macroeconomics in Freiburg, and at the Passau Workshop on International Economics.

This paper discusses the scope, methods, and effects of international coordination of economic policies. In analyzing the scope for and of coordination, the paper addresses the rationale for coordination, barriers to coordination, the range and specificivity of policies to be coordinated, and the frequency of coordination. In evaluating the methods of coordination, the emphasis is on the broad issues of rules versus discretion, single-indicator versus multi-Indicator systems, and hegemonic versus symmetric systems. Finally, using the MULTIMOD global macroeconomic model, some simulations are presented of several rule-based proposals for coordination.

Recently, monetary authorities have increasingly focused on implementing policies to ensure price stability and strengthen central bank independence. Simultaneously, in the fiscal area, market development has allowed public debt managers to focus more on cost minimization. This “divorce” of monetary and debt management functions in no way lessens the need for effective coordination of monetary and fiscal policy if overall economic performance is to be optimized and maintained in the long term. This paper analyzes these issues based on a review of the relevant literature and of country experiences from an institutional and operational perspective.

Since the five largest industrial democracies concluded the Plaza Agreement in 1985, the theory and practice of international economic policy coordination has become the subject of spirited academic and public-policy debate. While some view policy coordination as crucial for the construction of an improved international monetary system, others fear that it risks delaying or weakening the implementation of macroeconomic and structural policies. In these papers and comments, prominent international economists consider past and present interpretations of the meaning of international policy coordination; conditions necessary for coordination to be beneficial both to the direct participants and the global economy; influential factors for the quantitative impact of coordination; obstacles to coordination; the most—and least—effective methods of coordination; and future directions of the coordination process, including processes associated with greater fixity of exchange rates. These studies will be readily accessible to policymakers, while offering sophisticated analyses to interested scholars of the global economy.

This paper discusses the scope, methods, the effects of international coordination of economic policies. In addressing the scope for and of coordination, the analysis covers the rationale for coordination, barriers to coordination, the range and specificity of policies to be coordinated, the frequency of coordination, and the size of the coordinating group. Turning to the methods of coordination, the emphasis is on the broad issues of rules versus discretion, single-indicator versus multi-indicator approaches, and hegemonic versus more symmetric systems. In an attempt to shed some light on the effects of alternative rule- based proposals for coordination, we present some simulations of a global macroeconomic model (MULTIMQD) developed in the International Monetary Fund. The simulations considered range from 'smoothing rules for monetary and fiscal policy that imply only minimal international coordination, to more activist "target-zone" proposals that place greater restrictions on national authorities in the conduct of monetary and/or fiscal policies. The simulation results are compared to the actual evolution of the world economy over the 1974-87 period. Our findings suggest that simple mechanistic rule-based proposals are unlikely to lead to improved performance

As cross-border transactions and economic integration among nations have increased, formerly neglected differences among the domestic economic policies of nations have become progressively exposed to international scrutiny. National governments trying to pursue autonomous polices have found their decisions more difficult and the consequences of their decisions more uncertain. These trends have in turn provoked debate about whether governments should cooperate more fully when making their policy decisions. In this book, part of the Integrating National Economies series, Ralph A. Bryant considers how much national governments might benefit from coordination of their macroeconomic stabilization polices, the circumstances in which they might cooperation; and how ambitious that cooperation should be. Bryant argues that the potential benefits of attempted coordination are often greater than the potential risks. When national decisionmakers take into account the cross-border spillovers of their actions, and especially if the are prepared to consider mutually beneficial adjustments of their policy instruments, each cooperating nation may be able to attain higher levels of welfare. Bryant discusses circumstances in which efforts to coordinate could prove counterproductive. On the whole, however, he contends that efforts to coordinate policies internationally typically deserve examination and, frequently, can be expected to advance the common interests of nations' citizens. Bryant identifies and analyzes different forms of intergovernmental cooperation for monetary, fiscal, and exchange rate policies. One of the contributors of the book compares and evaluates three different analytical perspectives: the traditional policy-optimization approach favored by economists, the rule analysis of international regime environments, and the institutional analysis developed by scholars of international relations and political science. The book concludes with an o

This paper uses two of the IMF’s DSGE models to simulate the benefits of international fiscal and macroprudential policy coordination. The key argument is that these two policies are similar in that, unlike monetary policy, they have long-run effects on the level of GDP that need to be traded off with short-run effects on the volatility of GDP. Furthermore, the short-run effects are potentially much larger than those of conventional monetary policy, especially in the presence of nonlinearities such as the zero interest rate floor, minimum capital adequacy regulations, and lending risk that depends in a convex fashion on loan-to-value ratios. As a consequence we find that coordinated fiscal and/or macroprudential policy measures can have much larger stimulus and spillover effects than what has traditionally been found in the literature on conventional monetary policy.