Economics and Politics of Macroeconomic Policies

The book concentrates on macroeconomic policies from
both economic and political economy
perspective. The first two chapters take a pure
economic perspective and analyze foreign exchange
interventions pursued by the Czech National Bank in
the 2001-2002 appreciation bubble period. Third
chapter reviews the literature on dynamic
inconsistency of monetary policy and discusses
alternative proposals to limit the incentives of
policymakers to use monetary policy to maximize
their political support function. Fourth chapter
empirically measures the political pressure on the
Czech central bank and tests whether such pressure
influences monetary policy. Fifth chapter discusses
the concept of central bank independence from the
constitutional economics perspective. Finally, sixth
chapter uses a dynamic inconsistency model to assess
three alternative proposals how to reform fiscal
constitution in order to limit government s
incentive to use fiscal policy for maximizing
political support.

Autorentext

Adam Gersl (1978) works as senior economist in the Czech National Bank. He has a PhD in economics from the Charles University in Prague where he currently lectures. He studied in Prague, Konstanz and Freiburg. In 2004-2006 he worked for the European Central Bank. His research focuses on financial intermediation, FDI and political economy.

Klappentext

The book concentrates on macroeconomic policies from both economic and political economy perspective. The first two chapters take a pure economic perspective and analyze foreign exchange interventions pursued by the Czech National Bank in the 2001-2002 appreciation bubble period. Third chapter reviews the literature on dynamic inconsistency of monetary policy and discusses alternative proposals to limit the incentives of policymakers to use monetary policy to maximize their political support function. Fourth chapter empirically measures the political pressure on the Czech central bank and tests whether such pressure influences monetary policy. Fifth chapter discusses the concept of central bank independence from the constitutional economics perspective. Finally, sixth chapter uses a dynamic inconsistency model to assess three alternative proposals how to reform fiscal constitution in order to limit government's incentive to use fiscal policy for maximizing political support.