期刊名称：Discussion Paper Series / Department of Economics, New York University
出版年度：2005
卷号：1
出版社：New York University
摘要：In previous work (Eggertsson and Woodford, 2003), we characterized the optimal
conduct of monetary policy when a real disturbance causes the natural rate of interest
to be temporarily negative, so that the zero lower bound on nominal interest rates binds,
and showed that commitment to a history-dependent policy rule can greatly increase
welfare relative to the outcome under a purely forward-looking in°ation target. Here we
consider in addition optimal tax policy in response to such a disturbance, to determine
the extent to which ¯scal policy can help to mitigate the distortions resulting from the
zero bound, and to consider whether a history-dependent monetary policy commitment
continues to be important when ¯scal policy is appropriately adjusted. We ¯nd that
even in a model where complete tax smoothing would be optimal as long as the zero
bound never binds, it is optimal to temporarily adjust tax rates in response to a binding
zero bound; but when taxes have only a supply-side e®ect, the optimal policy requires
that the tax rate be raised during the \trap", while committing to lower tax rates below
their long-run level later. An optimal policy commitment is still history-dependent, in
general, but the gains from departing from a strict in°ation target are modest in the
case that ¯scal policy responds to the real disturbance in an appropriate way.
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