Tight Money-Tight Credit: Coordination Failure in the Conduct of Monetary and Financial Policies

Violations of Tinbergen’s rule and strategic interaction undermine stabilization policies in a New Keynesian model with the Bernanke-Gertler accelerator. Welfare costs of risk shocks are large because of efficiency losses and income effects of costly monitoring, but they are much larger under a simple Taylor rule (STR) or a Taylor rule augmented with credit spreads (ATR) than with a Taylor rule and a separate financial rule targeting spreads. ATR and STR are tight money-tight credit regimes responding too much (little) to inflation (spreads). The Nash equilibrium of monetary and financial policies is also tight money-tight credit but it dominates ATR and STR. (JEL E12, E31, E44, E43, E52, E63)

Policy Bundling and Costly Monitoring

When should elected officials be in charge of multiple vs single policy areas? To study this question, I analyze a formal model of political accountability where politicians can have authority over one or two policy areas. When all politicians act sincerely, voters are always better off with unbundled policies. However, the voter is indifferent when all politicians pander. When bundled politicians partially-pander, the optimal institution is dependent on how likely the politician is to be a good type. I then show that voters are willing to spend more to monitor politicians in charge of multiple policy areas.

Conservation Agreements: Relational Contracts with Endogenous Monitoring

This article examines the structure and performance of conservation agreements, which are relational contracts used across the world to protect natural resources. Key elements of these agreements are (1) they are ongoing arrangements between a local community and an outside party, typically a nongovernmental organization (NGO); (2) they feature payments in exchange for conservation services; (3) the prospects for success depend on the NGO engaging in costly monitoring to detect whether the community is foregoing short-term gains to protect the resource; (4) lacking a strong external enforcement system, they rely on self-enforcement; and (5) the parties have the opportunity to renegotiate at any time. A repeated-game model is developed and utilized to organize an evaluation of real conservation agreements, using three case studies as representative examples. (JEL D74, D86, Q20, Q56)

Credibility, Reputation and De-Risking in Global Banking: Evidence from a Theoretical Model

This paper investigates the de-risking phenomenon from the perspective of an international bank’s decision to de-risk in a foreign market, where there is asymmetric information and costly monitoring. We consider three adverse shocks to a foreign affiliate’s (i) perceived credibility, (ii) costs of monitoring, and (iii) reputation, as reflected in a loss of franchise value. We show that the headquarters’ incentives to reduce international exposures are prompted by increasing funding and monitoring costs and by falling franchise values. Distortions arise because adverse credibility shocks make funding rates less responsive to actual risk choices, and impairments in the bank’s reputation negatively affect franchise values. All else equal, this reduces the bank’s incentives to retain and monitor the foreign affiliate, and risks increase. The risk effects are most pronounced in the case of credibility shocks, and incentives to reduce international exposures are strongest when reputational risks affect headquarters.