CAREER: Political Economy and Policy with Imperfect Information

这项研究有三个项目。第一个是研究一个小型开放经济体的新的政治经济学模型。该模式包含了主要的政治摩擦(关于支出时机的分歧)，以及对税收政策或债务偿还的承诺。它是对标准的小型开放型经济模型的简约修改，并提供了主要由政治经济摩擦驱动的丰富动力。因此，该模型能够产生关于债务、增长和政治机构行为的新的、有趣的预测。计划在今后的工作中对减免债务和援助等政策的作用进行若干重要的理论扩展和分析。第二个项目涉及私人信息下的最优政策设计。这个项目将扩展以前的经济技术，以便能够解决政策制定者具有偏见偏好但拥有有价值的私人信息时的政策设计问题。我将分析两个具体案例：(I)财政当局预算平衡规则的最佳性，以及(Ii)贸易协定中关税上限的最佳性。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，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因素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。它还涉及几个国际组织议程上最重要的更具体的政策问题。例如，有关于债务减免对新兴市场的作用的大讨论，以及关于外国援助对贫穷国家的好处(如果有的话)的持续辩论。这项研究将提供一个现代框架来分析这些政策的作用。平衡预算规则项目对政策具有重要影响，不仅对新兴市场，而且对发达国家也是如此。关于最佳关税规则的项目涉及如何改进关贸总协定/世贸组织的谈判，使所有有关各方受益。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.