Incentives and the Limits to Deflationary Policy

I study a version of the Lagos-Wright (2005) model for which the Friedman rule is always a desirable policy, but where implementation may be constrained by the need to respect incentive-feasibility. In the environment I consider, incentives are distorted owing to private information and

limited commitment. I demonstrate that a monetary economy can overcome the former friction, but not necessarily the latter. When this is so, there is an incentive-induced lower bound to the rate of deflation away from the Friedman rule. There are also circumstances in which the best incentive-feasible monetary policy may entail a strictly positive rate of inflation. This will be the case, for example, if agents are sufficiently impatient or if there are rapidly diminishing returns to production.

For more information, contact Iourii Manovskii.