Does Central Bank Independence Need Inflation Targeting?

Two articles on today’s Financial Times  puzzle me. The first (Weidmann warns of currency war risk) offers yet another example of how economic analysis sometimes leaves the way to ideological beliefs. The Bundesbank’s president argues (as he already did in the past) that giving up inflation targeting hampers central bank independence. How? Why? He does not bother explaining.

What I think he has in mind is that once the objective of the central bank goes beyond strict inflation targeting, monetary policy needs an arbitrage between often conflicting objectives (typically unemployment and inflation). It is the essence of the dual mandate. This of course moves monetary policy out of the realm of technocratic choice, and makes it a political institution (Stephen King explains it nicely). I would argue that this is normal once we abandon the ideal-type of frictionless neoclassical economics, and we accept that we may have a tradeoff between inflation and unemployment.  But this is not the issue here. The issue, and the puzzle, is why transforming the choice from technocratic to political, should necessarily lead to giving up independence.

Austerity and Ideology

Wolfgang Munchau has another interesting editorial on austerity, in yesterday’s Financial Times. He argues that the US may become the next paying member of the austerity club, thus making the perspective of another lost decade certain.

Munchau’s article could be the n-th plea against austerity, as one can by now read everywhere (except in Berlin or in Brussels; but this is another story). What caught my attention are two paragraphs in particular.

Economic Theories and Technocratic Governments

The upcoming Italian elections triggered an interesting debate on the choices ahead, and on the role of technocratic governments. A few days ago the Italian journalist Barbara Spinelli published on the daily La Repubblica a masterly analysis (in Italian) of the difficulties faced by a political sphere that seems incapable, or unwilling, to reclaim from technocrats the task of governing, by which I mean the right/duty to choose between policies with different economic and social consequences.

To an economist, Spinelli’s analysis is a source of further thoughts on the role of choice in economic theory and policy, with important consequences not only for Italy but also for the path that the European construction will walk in the coming years.

On Fiscal Rules and the Need for Reforming the Stability Pact

I recently wrote a paper with Jerome Creel and Paul Hubert, in which we try to assess the impact of the different fiscal rules that are being discussed for reforming the Eurozone governance. For our simulations we took into account the standard Keynesian positive effects of deficit spending: Government expenditure substitutes missing private demand, and hence supports economic activity. But we also embedded a negative effect of deficit and debt, that goes through increased interest rates (the famous spreads). High interest rates make it harder for the private sector to finance spending, and hence depress aggregate demand and growth. We assessed the performance of the rules in terms of average growth over the next 20 years.

(Bad) Arguments Against Debt Monetization

I think it is useful to list, and assess, the main arguments advanced against an enhanced role of the ECB as a lender/buyer of last resort. I can think of four of them: credibility, inflation, irrelevance, ineffectiveness.

A Sad Day

A few days ago Pierangelo Garegnani passed away. A good summary of his contribution to the debate on economic theory can be found here, and a slightly more technical one here.

He has been my first teacher. It is thanks to him that I understood, very young, that the Keynesian principle of effective demand is not a simple special case of the neoclassical theory. Just a few weeks ago I went back to his 1979 CJE controversy on effective demand with Joan Robinson that is surprisingly actual.

But, above all, he taught me rigour, attention to the internal consistency of an argument, and love for economic theory, meant as a conceptual lens to make sense of a complex reality. I had lost him of sight, for a number of reasons of no interest. But his lesson has been invaluable along all my career, and will continue to be. A Maestro…

It is a sad day.