CAREER: Political Economy and Policy with Imperfect Information

这项研究有三个项目。第一部分研究了一个小型开放经济体的政治经济学新模型。该模型结合了主要的政治摩擦（关于支出时间的分歧）以及缺乏对税收政策或债务偿还的承诺。它是对标准的小型开放经济模式的精简修改，并提供了主要由政治经济摩擦驱动的丰富动态。因此，该模型能够产生有关债务、增长和政治制度行为的新颖而有趣的预测。为今后的工作计划了几个重要的理论扩展和对诸如债务减免和援助等政策的作用的分析。第二个项目涉及私有信息下的最优策略设计。该项目将扩展以前的经济技术，以便能够在决策者有偏见偏好但拥有宝贵的私人信息时解决政策设计问题。我将分析两种特殊情况：(I)财政当局预算平衡规则的最优性，以及（ii）贸易协定中关税上限的最优性。最后，第三个项目将使用最近开发的信息和货币政策宏观经济模型来研究中央银行的最佳公共沟通问题。更广泛的影响：该研究项目通过将政治经济学考虑引入宏观经济学家的基本工具包，为经济增长文献做出了贡献。它还涉及在若干国际组织议程上居于首位的更具体的政策问题。例如，人们对新兴市场债务减免的作用进行了大量讨论，同时也在就外国援助穷国的好处（如果有的话）进行辩论。这项研究将为分析这些政策的作用提供一个现代框架。平衡预算规则项目对政策有着重要影响，不仅对新兴市场如此，对发达国家也是如此。关于最佳关税规则的项目对如何改进关贸总协定/世贸组织的谈判以使所有有关各方受益有影响。最后，沟通项目的动机是美联储和其他央行面临的实际问题。

This research has three projects. The first studies a novel model of political economy for a small open economy. The model incorporates a main political friction (disagreement about the timing of expenditures) together with lack of commitment to tax policy or debt repayment. It is a parsimonious modification to the standard small open economy model and delivers rich dynamics driven mainly by the political economy friction. The model is thus capable of generating new and interesting predictions regarding the behavior of debt, growth and political institutions. Several important theoretical extensions and an analysis of the role of policies such as debt relief and aid are planned for future work. The second project relates to the design of optimal policy under private information. This project will extend previous economic techniques to be able to solve policy design questions when the policy maker has biased preferences but posses valuable private information. I will analyze two particular cases: (i) the optimality of budget-balance rules for fiscal authorities, and (ii) the optimality of tariff caps in trade agreements. Finally, the third project will use a recently developed macroeconomic model of information and monetary policy, to study the question of optimal public communication by a Central Bank. Broader Impact: The research project contributes to the economic growth literature by introducing political economy considerations into the basic toolkit of macroeconomists. It also deals with more specific policy questions that have been at the top of the agenda of several international organizations. For example, there is a large discussion regarding the role of debt relief to emerging markets, as well as an ongoing debate on the benefits (if any) of foreign aid to poor nations. The research will provide a modern framework to analyze the role of such policies. The project on balanced budget rules has important implications for policy, not only for emerging markets but also in the developed world. The project on optimal tariff rules has implications for how negotiations in GATT/WTO can be improved to benefit all parties involved. Finally, the project on communication is motivated by practical issues faced by the Federal Reserve and other Central Banks.