The Inflation Bias Hypothesis and Monetary Policy in the Open Economy

作者提出的研究，以帮助确定如何改善货币政策在封闭和开放的经济环境。第一个项目将探讨市场经济体经历长期低通胀和高通胀的原因的一个假设。通货膨胀偏向假说认为，周期性的高通胀反映了货币制度设计的弱点，因为它们没有赋予货币政策制定者可信地承诺持续低通胀政策的能力。为了检验通货膨胀偏向假说，作者提出将通货膨胀的各种成本和收益纳入一个缺乏承诺技术的最优货币当局的一般均衡模型。使用一般均衡模型的优势在于，它们对广泛的数据有影响。通过这种方式，大量的信息，而不仅仅是通货膨胀和产出的数据，可以在模型的设计和构建中发挥作用。作者认为，如果所得模型能够解释观测到的通货膨胀水平和波动性，那么我们就应该更相信通货膨胀偏向假说，并相信其含义，即货币政策的改善需要重新设计货币制度以纳入更大的承诺。作者报告了基于分析两个传统的一般均衡模型的一些初步结果。他发现，这些模型并不支持通货膨胀偏向假说，它们意味着重新设计货币制度几乎没有什么好处。然而，他也报告说，这些模型对货币需求的影响很差。此外，他指出，当模型的中介技术的变化被引入，以改善其货币需求的影响，然后通货膨胀偏见假设复活。在此基础上，作者建议对中介技术的建模进行额外的工作，以便对通货膨胀偏见假设进行可信的评估。一个令人信服的测试还要求模型在考虑更广泛的变量时表现良好。因此，作者计划扩展现有的模型，使其包括资本积累和政府财政变量，如债务和税收。笔者希望通过本研究，能够对实证货币需求文献中的各种疑难问题、恶性通货膨胀的特征等其他问题有所帮助。第二个课题是对新兴市场经济体发生金融危机的原因和对策进行研究。作者试图通过分析强调企业的国外和国内营运资本要求的模型来获得对这些经验的新见解。他建议进行研究，以帮助阐明在危机刚刚结束时应采取的适当货币政策。他提出的初步结果表明，在“危机”时期的货币传导机制的性质可能是非常不同的，它是在“正常”时期。作者还建议研究包括美元化在内的替代性货币制度，看看哪种制度最有可能产生好的结果。在这项工作中，他计划考虑到影响特定新兴市场经济体的各种冲击，包括对预期的冲击。拟议的研究将涉及构建小型开放经济体的量化一般均衡模型。这些模式的建立和参数化将以各国的经验分析为指导。研究还需要对危机后发生的情况进行实证调查，包括分析当时可能施加的抵押品限制类型。我们可以使用定量一般均衡模型来探讨最近人们对低名义利率的假定危险的担忧。另一种方法是研究在一个有大量不同年龄和生产率的公司的经济体中的货币传导。

The author proposes research to help identify ways of improving monetary policy in both closed and open economy settings. The first project would explore one hypothesis about the reasons market economies undergo prolonged periods of low and high inflation. The inflation bias hypoth-esis suggests that the periodic episodes of costly high inflation reflect a weakness in the design of monetary institutions in that they do not confer monetary policy makers with the ability to cred-ibly commit to consistently low inflation policies. To test the inflation bias hypothesis, the author proposes to incorporate the various costs and benefits of inflation into general equilibrium models with an optimizing monetary authority which lacks a commitment technology. The advantage of using general equilibrium models is that they have implications for a wide array of data. In this way a large amount of information, not just data on inflation and output, can be brought to bear in the models' design and construction. The author argues that if the resulting model can account for the observed level and volatility of inflation, then we should have greater confidence in the inflation bias hypothesis and in its implication that improvements in monetary policy require redesigning monetary institutions to incorporate greater commitment.The author reports some initial results based on analyzing two conventional general equi-librium models. He finds that these models do not support the inflation bias hypothesis, and that they imply there is little to be gained in the redesign of monetary institutions. However he also reports that the models' implications for money demand are poor. Moreover, he shows that when changes in the models' intermediation technologies are introduced to improve their money demand implications, then the inflation bias hypothesis is resuscitated. On this basis, the author proposes to undertake additional work on the modeling of intermediation technologies in order to develop a credible evaluation of the inflation bias hypothesis. A convincing test also requires that the model do well in accounting for a broader set of variables. Accordingly, the author plans to extend existing models so that they incorporate capital accumulation and government fiscal variables such as debt and taxes. The author expects that the research will help shed light on other issues including various puzzles in the empirical money demand literature and puzzling features of hyperinflation episodes.The second project would help shed light on the causes and remedies for financial crises experienced by a number of emerging market economies. The author seeks to gain new insights into these experiences by analyzing models which emphasize the foreign and domestic working capital requirements of firms. He proposes research designed to help shed light on the ap-propriate monetary policy to follow in the immediate aftermath of a crisis. He presents preliminary results which suggest that the nature of the monetary transmission mechanism in 'crisis' times may be very different than what it is in 'normal' times. The author also proposes to study alterna-tive monetary regimes, including dollarization, to see which is most likely to produce good results. In this work, he plans to take into account the various shocks affecting particular emerging market economies, including shocks to expectations. The proposed research would involve constructing quantitative general equilibrium models of small open economies. The construction and parameter-ization of these models would be guided by empirical analysis of individual countries. The research also entails an empirical investigation of what happens in the aftermath of a crisis, including the analysis of the type of collateral constraints that may be imposed at that time.There are two additional projects. One would explore, with the use of quantitative general equilibrium models, recent concerns that have been raised about the supposed dangers of low nominal rates of interest. Another would investigate the monetary transmission in an economy with a large number of firms of different ages and productivity.