This paper clarifies and extends previous work on the equivalence between monetary regimes and fiscal regimes involving social security systems. We show that monetary regimes of the type we study are equivalent to two alternative types of social security regimes. This result has an important implication. Notably, governments can finance a real expenditure by increasing the inflation rate, or finance the expenditure by increasing the tax rate on social security benefits. Such equivalence should help us better understand the role that monetary policy plays in these economies.This research was begun while Russell was visiting Iowa State University. We gratefully acknowledge helpful conversations with Scott Freeman and Peter Rangazas, and comments from participants at the Midwest Macroeconomics Meetings in Atlanta. The views expressed herein do not necessarily represent the views of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System or the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City.

We consider a Diamond-type model of endogenous growth in which there are three assets: fiat money, government bonds, and equity. Because of productivity shocks, the equity return is uncertain, and risk-averse investors require a positive equity premium. Typically, there exist two steady states, but only one of them turns out to be stable. Tight monetary policy is harmful for growth in the stable steady state. These results hold under four different monetary policy strategies applied by the monetary authority. A monetary contraction increases the bond return and reduces the equity premium and thereby capital investment and growth.The research on this paper originated while Gerd Weinrich was visiting the Institute of Advanced Studies, Vienna. The authors thank an anonymous associate editor, Klaus Ritzberger, participants at the EEA2000 Congress, and seminar participants at the Catholic University of Milan for helpful comments. All remaining errors and shortcomings are our own responsibility.

Several papers show that a privatization of the social security system will not be politically supported by the current generations. The asymmetry in the timing of welfare gains and losses is what generates a status quo bias in favor of the unfunded system. We explore a simple mechanism to offset the status quo problem using a general-equilibrium overlapping generations model with endogenous labor supply calibrated to the Spanish economy. The mechanism implies a privatization of the social security system together with the elimination of compulsory retirement rules. Along the transition path, this mechanism drastically shortens (from three decades to only one decade) the convergence to the new steady state, diminishing the asymmetry in the timing of welfare gains and losses. As a result, there is an increase beyond 50% in the fraction of individuals that are better off with the implementation of such a reform.This work has benefited from useful comments by Jonathan Heathcote, Antonio Manresa, and seminar participants at CREB, Carlos III de Madrid, ESF Network in Social Insurance, and Stockholm School of Economics. We acknowledge financial support from Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología (SEC2000-0796) and Generalitat de Catalunya (SGR00-016).

Several papers show that a privatization of the social security system will not be politically supported by the current generations. The asymmetry in the timing of welfare gains and losses is what generates a status quo bias in favor of the unfunded system. We explore a simple mechanism to offset the status quo problem using a general-equilibrium overlapping generations model with endogenous labor supply calibrated to the Spanish economy. The mechanism implies a privatization of the social security system together with the elimination of compulsory retirement rules. Along the transition path, this mechanism drastically shortens (from three decades to only one decade) the convergence to the new steady state, diminishing the asymmetry in the timing of welfare gains and losses. As a result, there is an increase beyond 50% in the fraction of individuals that are better off with the implementation of such a reform.This work has benefited from useful comments by Jonathan Heathcote, Antonio Manresa, and seminar participants at CREB, Carlos III de Madrid, ESF Network in Social Insurance, and Stockholm School of Economics. We acknowledge financial support from Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología (SEC2000-0796) and Generalitat de Catalunya (SGR00-016).

A small macroeconomic model is constructed to study the transmission of the monetary policy conducted by the Deutsche Bundesbank (DBB) since the middle of the 1970s. For this purpose, quarterly, seasonally unadjusted data for the period from 1975 to 1998 are used; that is, the period until the introduction of the Euro is considered. A vector error correction model is constructed for the German monetary sector based on M3, GNP, an inflation rate, a long-term interest rate, and a short-term rate that represents the policy variable of the DBB. Moreover, import price inflation is included as an exogenous variable to capture foreign effects. An impulse response analysis highlights the effects of changes in the short-term interest rate and shows the interaction of the main variables of the monetary sector.We thank Alexander Benkwitz for helping with the computations and Massimiliano Marcellino, Paulo Rodrigues, Phillipe Andrade, Harald Uhlig, Adrian Pagan, and two anonymous referees for comments. Financial support was provided by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, Sonderforschungsbereich 373, and the European Commission under the Training and Mobility of Researchers Programme (contract No. ERBFMRXCT980213). The paper was presented at the EEA meeting and the ESEM in Venice in 2002.

A small macroeconomic model is constructed to study the transmission of the monetary policy conducted by the Deutsche Bundesbank (DBB) since the middle of the 1970s. For this purpose, quarterly, seasonally unadjusted data for the period from 1975 to 1998 are used; that is, the period until the introduction of the Euro is considered. A vector error correction model is constructed for the German monetary sector based on M3, GNP, an inflation rate, a long-term interest rate, and a short-term rate that represents the policy variable of the DBB. Moreover, import price inflation is included as an exogenous variable to capture foreign effects. An impulse response analysis highlights the effects of changes in the short-term interest rate and shows the interaction of the main variables of the monetary sector.We thank Alexander Benkwitz for helping with the computations and Massimiliano Marcellino, Paulo Rodrigues, Phillipe Andrade, Harald Uhlig, Adrian Pagan, and two anonymous referees for comments. Financial support was provided by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, Sonderforschungsbereich 373, and the European Commission under the Training and Mobility of Researchers Programme (contract No. ERBFMRXCT980213). The paper was presented at the EEA meeting and the ESEM in Venice in 2002.

We introduce a new index that explores the linkage between business-cycle fluctuations and deviations from long-run economic relationships. This index is virtually a measure of the distance between an attractor, a space spanned by the associated cointegrating vectors, and a point in the n-dimensional Euclidean space. The index is applied to U.S. quarterly data to demonstrate its association with an economy's vulnerability state. We find that the average of the index during expansions negatively correlates with the average contraction in output during recessions. A nonlinear error correction model based on a revised version of the index reveals a forecasting gain as compared to the linear error correction model.The authors gratefully acknowledge helpful comments from two anonymous referees, Ming-Li Chen, Ching-Fan Chung, Jin-Lung Lin, and participants of the 2001 winter meeting of the Econometric Society in New Orleans and the workshop at the Institute of Economics, Academia Sinica. Yau received financial support from the National Science Council of Taiwan under grant NSC 89-2415-H-030-011.

This paper examines the effects of various structural shocks in the passive monetary-active fiscal regime in which the fiscal theory of the price level is valid, and compares these effects to those suggested by conventional theory (the active monetary-passive fiscal regime), within a framework of the New Keynesian sticky price model. The results suggest that the effects of structural shocks are substantially different in the passive monetary-active fiscal regime. First, a monetary contraction (an increase in the interest-rate) increases the inflation rate persistently, and increases output with lags. Second, a positive government spending shock leads to a consumption rise in the model that predicts a consumption fall based on conventional theory. Third, in response to aggregate-demand and aggregate-supply shocks, a period of inflation above (or below) the steady-state is followed by a period of inflation below (or above) the steady-state. This inflation reversal is also found in the impulse responses of the estimated VAR models during the 1940's and 1950's, which suggests that the passive monetary-active fiscal regime seems to be actually in place during that period.I thank the editor, an associate editor, and two anonymous referees for constructive suggestions, Christopher Sims for discussion on earlier drafts, Minjung Chae for research assistance, and Clayton Reck for editorial help. All remaining errors are mine.

This paper examines the effects of various structural shocks in the passive monetary-active fiscal regime in which the fiscal theory of the price level is valid, and compares these effects to those suggested by conventional theory (the active monetary-passive fiscal regime), within a framework of the New Keynesian sticky price model. The results suggest that the effects of structural shocks are substantially different in the passive monetary-active fiscal regime. First, a monetary contraction (an increase in the interest-rate) increases the inflation rate persistently, and increases output with lags. Second, a positive government spending shock leads to a consumption rise in the model that predicts a consumption fall based on conventional theory. Third, in response to aggregate-demand and aggregate-supply shocks, a period of inflation above (or below) the steady-state is followed by a period of inflation below (or above) the steady-state. This inflation reversal is also found in the impulse responses of the estimated VAR models during the 1940's and 1950's, which suggests that the passive monetary-active fiscal regime seems to be actually in place during that period.I thank the editor, an associate editor, and two anonymous referees for constructive suggestions, Christopher Sims for discussion on earlier drafts, Minjung Chae for research assistance, and Clayton Reck for editorial help. All remaining errors are mine.