Delong, Reinhart, Rose and Krugman are having a debate about the when and how the central banker can go bankrupt. Delong is having a separate debate with Reinhart and Williamson. WIlliamson shows a deflationary equilibrium point in the investment/interest rate model. Reinhart looks at macroeconomic history and finds central bankers going bankrupt. Nick Rowe says the central banker will never allow permanent deflation.
Here is a model to explain the debate. Inflation is the fee we pay to the monopoly central banker for the utility of the fiat, inflation is a draw the government takes from its fiat money business. The Taylor rule specifies the pricing schedule. The Taylor rule is a supply demand function, it says when the seigniorage fee is too high we quit working.
When the seigniorage account goes to zero, involuntarily, the central banker is no longer profitable, and the central bank is disbanded. Carmen Reinharts point is that this has happened many times, and she is attempting to define the model by which governments and its fiat business go bankrupt.
In other words, the central banker does 'go there', involuntarily now and then. The Taylor rule becomes invalid when the seigniorage account is overdrawn, the central banker can no longer measure, its business gone. When Yellen takes her post during the recession of 2014, Janet will find no wants to pay her inflation fee, G gets fired. For a recent example, the German banks abandoned support for European central bank. The central bankers salary may be the stickiest in the land, but it is not permanently stuck.
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