Macroeconomic Policy / / Robert J. Barro.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter HUP e-dition: Complete eBook Package
• VerfasserIn: Barro, Robert J.,
• Place / Publishing House: Cambridge, MA : : Harvard University Press, , [2013]; ©1990
• Year of Publication: 2013
• Edition: Reprint 2014
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (379 p.) :; 230 equations, 12 figures, 20 tables

Combining powerful insights from theory with close observation of data, Robert Barro’s new book goes a long way toward the establishment of an empirically based macroeconomic theory. Barro first presents a positive theory of government economic policymaking by using applied game theory to model strategic interactions between policymakers and the private sector. He applies this framework to questions of rules, discretion, and reputation in monetary policy. He then takes a close look at whether monetary disturbances have a strong effect on business fluctuations, concluding that the effect is neither as strong nor as pervasive as many economists have believed. He consequently turns his attention from monetary policy to fiscal policy. The originator of the modern theory of Ricardian equivalence, which says that taxes and budget deficits are logically equivalent, Barro summarizes the current debate and argues that the Ricardian theorem is the correct starting point for the analysis of intertemporal government finance. Finally, stating his belief that macroeconomists have probably spent too much time thinking about deficits—which relate to how government spending is financed—and not enough about the effects of government expenditures themselves, he examines evidence of the macroeconomic effects of government spending in the United States and Great Britain.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Introduction -- PART I. Rules versus Discretion -- 1. Developments in the Theory of Rules versus Discretion -- 2. A Positive Theory of Monetary Policy in a Natural Rate Model -- 3. Rules, Discretion, and Reputation in a Model of Monetary Policy -- 4. Inflationary Finance under Discretion and Rules -- 5. Reputation in a Model of Monetary Policy with Incomplete Information -- PART II. Money and Business Fluctuations -- 6. Intertemporal Substitution and the Business Cycle -- 7. Time-Separable Preferences and Intertemporal-Substitution Models of Business Cycles -- 8. Interest-Rate Targeting -- PART III. Fiscal Policy -- 9. The Ricardian Approach to Budget Deficits -- 10. U.S. Deficits since World War I -- 11. On the Predictability of Tax-Rate Changes -- 12. Output Effects of Government Purchases -- 13. Government Spending, Interest Rates, Prices, and Budget Deficits in the United Kingdom, 1701–1918 -- Index