NBER Working Papers by Pedro Teles

When the zero lower bound on nominal interest rates binds, monetary policy cannot provide appropriate stimulus. We show that in the standard New Keynesian model, tax policy can deliver such stimulus at no cost and in a time-consistent manner. There is no need to use inefficient policies such as wasteful public spending or future commitments to inflate. We conclude that in the New Keynesian model, the zero bound on nominal interest rates is not a relevant constraint on both fiscal and monetary policy.

This paper investigates whether the quantity theory of money is still alive. We argue that it is, but that the slippage is not negligible. For countries with low inflation, the relationship between average inflation and the growth rate of money is tenuous at best. A correction for variation in output growth and the opportunity cost of money, using theory implied elasticities, helps explain the slippage. For the period since 1990, inflation targeting at low rates of inflation makes it harder to establish the long run relationship between monetary growth and inflation.

We characterize the optimal sequential choice of monetary policy in economies with either nominal or indexed debt. In a model where nominal debt is the only source of time inconsistency, the Markov-perfect equilibrium policy implies the progressive depletion of the outstanding stock of debt, until the time inconsistency disappears. There is a resulting welfare loss if debt is nominal rather than indexed. We also analyze the case where monetary policy is time inconsistent even when debt is indexed. In this case, with nominal debt, the sequential optimal policy converges to a time-consistent steady state with positive -- or negative -- debt, depending on the value of the intertemporal elasticity of substitution. Welfare can be higher if debt is nominal rather than indexed and the level of de...