1、Macroeconomic Policy after the Crisisedited by George Akerlof, Olivier Blanchard, David Romer, andJoseph StiglitzIntroduction: Rethinking Macro Policy II-Getting GranularOlivier Blanchard, Giovanni DellAriccia, and Paolo MauroPart I: Monetary Policy1 Many Targets, Many Instruments: Where Do We Stand
2、?Janet L.Yellen2 Monetary Policy, the Only Game in Town?Lorenzo Bini Smaghi3 Monetary Policy during the Crisis: From the Depths to theHeightsMervyn A.King4 Monetary Policy Targets after the CrisisMichael WoodfordPart II: Macroprudential Policy5 Macroprudential Policy in ProspectAndrew Haldane6 Macro
3、prudential Policy and the Financial Cycle: SomeStylized Facts and Policy SuggestionsClaudio Borio7 Macroprudential Policy in Action: IsraelStanley Fischer8 Koreas Experiences with Macroprudential PolicyChoongsoo KimPart III: Financial Regulation9 Everything the IMF Wanted to Know about FinancialRegu
4、lation and Wasnt Afraid to AskSheila Bair10 Regulating Large Financial InstitutionsJeremy C.Stein11 The Contours of Banking and the Future of Its RegulationJean Tirole12 Banking Reform in Britain and EuropeJohn Vickers13 Leverage, Financial Stability, and DeflationAdair TurnerPart IV: Fiscal Policy1
5、4 Defining the Reemerging Role of Fiscal PolicyJanice Eberly15 Fiscal Policy in the Shadow of Debt: Surplus KeynesianismStill WorksAnders Borg16 Fiscal Policies in RecessionsRoberto Perotti17 Fiscal PolicyNouriel RoubiniPart V: Exchange Rate Arrangements18 How to Choose an Exchange Rate ArrangementA
6、gustin Carstens19 Rethinking Exchange Rate Regimes after the CrisisJay C.Shambaugh20 Exchange Rate Arrangements: Spain and the United KingdomMartin Wolf21 Exchange Rate Arrangements: The Flexible and FixedExchange Rate Debate RevisitedGang YiPart VI: Capital Account Management22 Capital Account Mana
7、gement: Toward a New Consensus?Duvvuri Subbarao23 Capital Flows and Capital Account ManagementJose De Gregorio24 Managing Capital Inflows in BrazilMarcio Holland25 Capital Account ManagementHelene ReyPart VII: Conclusions26 The Cat in the Tree and Further Observations: RethinkingMacroeconomic Policy
8、 IIGeorge A.Akerlof27 Rethinking Macroeconomic PolicyOlivier Blanchard28 Preventing the Next Catastrophe: Where Do We Stand?David Romer29 The Lessons of the North Atlantic Crisis for EconomicTheory and PolicyJoseph E.StiglitzContributorsIndexOlivier Blanchard, Giovanni DellAriccia, and Paolo MauroTh
9、e 2008-2009 global economic and financial crisis and itsaftermath keep forcing policymakers to rethink macroeconomicpolicy. First was the Lehman crisis, which showed how muchpolicymakers had underestimated the dangers posed by thefinancial system and demonstrated the limits of monetarypolicy. Then i
10、t was the euro area crisis, which forced themto rethink the workings of currency unions and fiscal policy.And throughout, they have had to improvise, from the use ofunconventional monetary policies, to the provision of theinitial fiscal stimulus, to the choice of the speed of fiscalconsolidation, to
11、 the use of macroprudential instruments.We took a first look at the issues a few years ago, both ina paper (Blanchard, DellAriccia, and Mauro 2010) and at anIMF conference in 2011 (Blanchard et al. 2012). There was aclear sense among both researchers and policymakersparticipating in the conference t
12、hat we had entered a bravenew world and that we had more questions than answers. Twoyears later, the contours of monetary, fiscal, andmacroprudential policies remain unclear. But policies havebeen tried and progress has been made, both theoretical andempirical. This introduction updates the status o
13、f thedebate. It was prepared for a second conference that washosted by the IMF on the same topic in spring 2013 and as aspringboard for further discussion.A few observations on the scope of the analysis: ourcomments focus on the design of macroeconomic policy afterthe global economy emerges from the
14、 crisis rather than oncurrent policy choices, such as the design of exit policiesfrom quantitative easing or the pros and cons of money-financed fiscal stimulus. The two sets of issues areobviously related, but our objective is to analyze somegeneral principles that could be used to guide macroecono
15、micpolicy in the future rather than to suggest specific measuresto be taken today. We also take a relatively narrow view ofmacroeconomic policy, leaving out any discussion ofstructural reforms and financial regulation. Although theborder between financial regulation and macroprudentialpolicies is fu
16、zzy, we concentrate on the cyclical componentof financial regulation rather than on the overall design ofthe financial architecture.This introduction is organized in three main sections:monetary policy, fiscal policy, and-what may be emerging asthe third leg of macroeconomic policy-macroprudentialpo
17、licies.1. Monetary PolicyThe monetary policy theme that emerged from the firstconference on rethinking macro policy, held in March 2011,was that central banks had to move from an approach basedlargely on one target and one instrument (the inflation rateand the policy rate, respectively) to an approa
18、ch with moretargets and more instruments. Two years later the choice ofboth the set of targets and the set of instruments remainscontroversial.A.Should Central Banks Explicitly Target Activity?Although the focus of monetary policy discussions has been,rightly, on the role of the financial system and
19、 itsimplications for policy, macroeconomic developments duringthe crisis and after have led to new questions about an oldissue, the relation between inflation and output, with directimplications for monetary policy.One of the arguments for the focus on inflation by centralbanks was the divine coinci
20、dence aphorism: the notion that,by keeping inflation stable, monetary policy would keepeconomic activity as close as possible (given frictions inthe economy) to its potential. So, the argument went, even ifpolicymakers cared about keeping output at potential, theycould best achieve this by focusing
21、on inflation and keepingit stable. Although no central bank believed that divinecoincidence held exactly, it looked like a sufficiently goodapproximation to justify a primary focus on inflation and topursue inflation targeting.Since the crisis began, however, the relation betweeninflation and output
22、 in advanced economies has beensubstantially different from what was observed before thecrisis. With the large cumulative decline in output relativeto trend and the sharp increase in unemployment, mosteconomists would have expected a fall in inflation, perhapseven the appearance of deflation. Yet in
23、 most advancedeconomies (including some experiencing severe contractions inactivity), inflation has remained close to the range observedbefore the crisis.As a matter of logic, there are two interpretations of whatis happening. Either potential output has declined nearly asmuch as actual output, so t
24、hat the output gap (the differencebetween potential and actual output) is in fact small, thusputting little pressure on inflation, or the output gap isstill substantial but the relation between inflation and theoutput gap has changed in important ways.With regard to the first interpretation, it is p
25、ossiblethat the crisis itself led potential output to fall, or thatoutput before the crisis was higher than potential output-forinstance, if it was supported by unsustainable sectoral(housing) bubbles-so that the actual output gap is small.This could explain why inflation has remained stable.Empiric
26、ally, however, it has been difficult to explain whythe natural rate of unemployment should be much higher thanbefore the crisis, or why the crisis should have led to alarge decline in underlying productivity. And although thereis a fair amount of uncertainty around potential outputmeasures (especial
27、ly in the wake of large shocks such asfinancial crises), by nearly all estimates, most advancedeconomies still suffer from a substantial output gap.This leads to the second interpretation. Indeed, convincingevidence suggests that the relation between the output gapand inflation has changed. Recent w
28、ork (e.g., the IMFs 2013World Economic Outlook report) attributes the change to thefollowing two factors.The first factor is more stable inflation expectations,reflecting in part the increasing credibility of monetarypolicy during the last two or three decades. By itself, thisis a welcome developmen
29、t, and it explains why a large outputgap now leads to lower (but stable) inflation rather than tosteadily decreasing inflation.The second factor is a weaker relation (both in magnitudeand in statistical significance) between the output gap andinflation for a given expected rate of inflation. This is
30、more worrisome because it implies that fairly stableinflation may be consistent with large, undesirablevariations in the output gap.Looking forward, the main question for monetary policy iswhether this weaker relation is a result of the crisisitself, and thus will strengthen again when the crisis co
31、mesto an end, or whether it reflects a longer-term trend. Thetentative evidence is that part of it may indeed reflectspecific circumstances related to the crisis-in particular,the fact that downward nominal wage rigidities become morebinding when inflation is very low. But part of the weakerrelation
32、 seems to reflect as yet unidentified longer-termtrends. (These actually seem to have been present before thecrisis; see the IMFs 2013 World Economic Outlook.) Shouldthe relation remain weak, and the divine coincidence become areally bad approximation, central banks would have to targetactivity more
33、 explicitly than they are doing today.B.Should Central Banks Target Financial Stability?The crisis has made it clear that inflation and outputstability are not enough to guarantee sustained macroeconomicstability. Beneath the calm macroeconomic surface of theGreat Moderation (a period of reduced mac
34、roeconomicvolatility experienced in the United States beginning in the1980s), sectoral imbalances and financial risks were growing,and ultimately led to the crisis. The severity of the ensuingcrisis and the limited effectiveness of policy action haschallenged the precrisis benign neglect approach to
35、bubbles. And it has reignited the issue of whether monetarypolicy should include financial stability (proxied by, say,measures of leverage, credit aggregates, or asset prices)among its targets.The policy rate is clearly not the ideal tool for dealingwith the kind of imbalances that led to the crisis
36、. Its reachis too broad to be cost-effective. Instead, a consensus isemerging that more-targeted macroprudential tools should beused for that task.There are, however, important caveats. Macroprudentialtools are new, and little is known about how effective theycan be. They are exposed to circumventio
37、n and subject tothorny political economy constraints. (more on these toolsbelow) Given these limitations, the issue of whether centralbanks should use the policy rate to lean against bubbles hasmade a comeback (see, e.g., Svensson 2009; Mishkin 2010;Bernanke 2011; King 2012).Should central banks cho
38、ose to lean against bubbles, an oldissueevident both in the 2008-2009 crisis and in manyprevious financial crises-is that bubbles are rarelyidentifiable with certainty in real time. This uncertaintysuggests that central banks may want to react to large enoughmovements in some asset prices without ha
39、ving to decidewhether such movements reflect changes in fundamentals orbubbles. In other words, given what we have learned about thecosts of inaction, higher type I errors (assuming that it isa bubble and acting accordingly, when in fact the increasereflects changes in fundamentals) in exchange for
40、lower typeII errors (assuming the increase reflects fundamentals, whenin fact it is a bubble) may well be justified. However,should that road be taken, setting appropriate thresholdswill not be easy. One possibility would be to focus oncertain types of asset-price booms, for instance those fundedthr
41、ough bank credit, which have proven particularlydangerous.C.Should Central Banks Care about the Exchange Rate?The crisis has shown once again that international capitalflows can be very volatile. This volatility has not generallybeen a major problem in advanced economies (although the flowreversals
42、in the euro area and the drying out of dollarliquidity in the European banking system during the earlystages of the crisis are a reminder that vulnerabilitiesexist there as well). However, shallower financial markets,greater openness and reliance on foreign-denominated assets,and less diversified re
43、al economies make emerging marketssignificantly vulnerable to swings in capital flows.The volatility of capital flows can have adverse effects onmacroeconomic stability, both directly (through effects onthe current account and aggregate demand) and indirectly(through effects on domestic balance shee
44、ts and thusfinancial stability). When the exchange rate strengthens onthe back of strong inflows, the traded goods sector losescompetitiveness, potentially leading to an allocation ofcapital and labor that may be costly to undo if capital flowsand the exchange rate swing back. Capital inflows can al
45、solead to balance sheet structures that are vulnerable toreversals to the extent that the inflows promote credit booms(and hence leverage) and increase the use of foreign-denominated liabilities. (There is ample evidence, forinstance, that the credit booms and widespread reliance onforeign currency
46、borrowing in Eastern Europe in the firstdecade of the 2000s was associated with strong capitalinflows DellAriccia et al. 2012).The problems with capital flow volatility have led to areassessment of the potential role for capital controls(which the IMF calls capital flow management tools). But,just a
47、s in the case of macroprudential tools and financialstability, capital controls may not work well enough, raisingthe issue of whether monetary policy should have anadditional objective (Ostry, Ghosh, and Chamon 2012).Could central banks have two targets, the inflation rateand the exchange rate, and
48、two instruments, the policy rateand foreign exchange intervention? (Inflation-targetingcentral banks have argued that they care about the exchangerate to the extent that it affects inflation, but it is worthasking whether this should be the only effect of the exchangerate they ought to consider.) Ad
49、ding exchange rates to themix raises issues of both feasibility and desirability.The answer to the feasibility question is probably no foreconomies with highly integrated financial markets (andalmost certainly no for small, very open, advanced economies-say, New Zealand). Under those conditions, ste
50、rilizedintervention is unlikely to be effective because capitalflows react immediately to interest rate differentials. Butthe answer is probably yes (and the evidence points in thisdirection) for economies with greater financial frictions andmore highly segmented markets. Under those circumstances,
