We describe a simple mechanism that generates inflation persistence in a standard sticky-price model of optimal fiscal and monetary policy. Key to this mechanism is that policies are implemented under discretion. The government’s discretionary incentive to erode the real value of nominal public debt by means of surprise inflation renders inflation expectations and, in further consequence, equil...

The fiscal theory says that the price level is determined by the ratio of nominal debt to the present value of real primary surpluses. I analyze long-term debt and optimal policy in the fiscal theory. I find that the maturity structure of the debt matters. For example, it determines whether news of future deficits implies current inflation or future inflation. When long-term debt is present, th...

I develop an extension of the standard New Keynesian model to monetary policy regime switching to study the impact of uncertainty around the future inflation target. First, I fully characterize how the responses of current inflation and output to inflation target uncertainty depend on the monetary policy rule. If monetary policy is passive, inflation may increase far beyond the anticipated incr...

Observed inflation targets around the industrial world are concentrated at two percent per year. This chapter investigates the extent to which the observed magnitudes of inflation targets are consistent with the optimal rate of inflation predicted by leading theories of monetary nonneutrality. We find that consistently those theories imply that the optimal rate of inflation ranges from minus th...

The welfare costs of inflation are analyzed in a life-cycle model. In the benchmark model, money is held to satisfy a cash-in-advance constraint. An inflation rate over 200% per annum maximizes lifetime utility because it leads to better smoothing of utility over the life-cycle, in essence because inflation taxes rich, old agents and makes net transfers to poor, young ones. This version of the ...