Although the governmental budget is primarily concerned with fiscal policy (defining what resources it will raise and what it will spend), the government also has a number of tools that it can use to affect the economy through monetary control. By managing its portfolio of debt, it can affect interest rates, and by deciding on the amount of new money injected into the economy, it can affect the amount of cash in circulation and, therefore, indirectly affect prices and other economic variables. In recent years, governments, discouraged by past failures with fiscal manipulation, have turned to monetarist policies to attempt control of the economy.
At its simplest, monetarist theory postulates that in the economy there is a fixed amount of money, which circulates at a given velocity. This money is then available to finance the various transactions carried out in the economy at the prevailing prices. Under these circumstances, according to the theory, control of the price level can be maintained by controlling the amount of available money.
Although a desire to control inflation has been at the heart of the recent rise to prominence of monetary policies in many countries, monetary policy can be used to affect a number of different facets of economic behaviour. In time of unemployment the central bank may stimulate private investment expenditure, and possibly also household spending on consumer goods, by reducing interest rates and taking measures to increase the supply of credit, liquid assets, and money. The customary tools for doing this are open market operations, the discount rate of the central bank, and cash reserve requirements for commercial banks.
In open market operations the central bank buys government securitiesâbonds and treasury billsâfrom the private sector. The effect is to reduce interest rates by bidding up bond prices. The sellers of the government securities obtain cash that they deposit in the banks, thus increasing the cash reserves of the banks and enabling them to expand credit to private borrowers; this in turn causes interest rates in the private sector to fall and the terms of credit to become easier. In response, firms are likely to increase their investment expenditures, and households are likely to spend more on consumer goods.
The second tool of monetary policy, the discount rate of the central banks, is often used together with open market operations. This is the interest rate at which commercial banks can borrow funds from the central bank. If the discount rate is reduced, banks become more willing to extend credit to private borrowers because they can obtain funds themselves on easier terms. In many countries, changes in the discount rate tend to be followed by similar changes in the interest rates charged by banks to their borrowers.
The third tool of monetary policy, that of the cash reserve requirements (and, in some countries, certain types of government securities) for commercial banks, provides that banks must maintain money balances (in the form of deposits in the central bank) at a certain proportion of their liabilities. This means that the banks cannot expand their earning assets such as government securities and private loans, beyond that point. If the government reduces the reserve requirements, the banks can expand their loans further, thus increasing the total volume of credit outstanding.
Monetary policy, like fiscal policy, may also be used to combat inflationary tendencies by reversing the above measures; the central bank will then sell government securities (thereby increasing interest rates and reducing the supply of private credit and money), raise the discount rate, or increase reserve requirements.
Stabilization policy problems
A broad distinction may be made between two types of stabilization policies: discretionary and automatic. Discretionary policies involve deliberate actions taken by the authorities, such as open market operations, changes in discount rates and reserve requirements, and changes in tax rates or government expenditures. Automatic policies put reliance on built-in stabilizers that function without any deliberate intervention by the authorities. In the monetary field, for example, an increase in commodity prices tends to reduce the real value of financial assets, and if the government does nothing to offset this by increasing the volume of financial assets in the system, private spending will tend to decline. On the fiscal side, the main automatic stabilizer is the relation between tax revenues and cyclical changes in the economy. During booms, tax revenues rise and the need for expenditures on unemployment compensation decreases, channeling a larger proportion of the national income into government coffers; these effects are accentuated if the tax system is progressive because tax revenues rise more rapidly than money incomes. Provided that the government does not raise its expenditures along with the increased revenues, the budget tends to have a braking effect on private expenditure in boom times and an expansionary effect in times of recession.
There has been much discussion over the merits of discretionary policies as against automatic stabilizers. One advantage of automatic stabilizers is that the effects occur without the necessity of government action, which means that there is no delay, or lag, because of political controversies, administrative problems, or difficulties in determining whether the time has come to act. There are three types of lag in economic policy: the recognition lag, the decision lag, and the effect lag.
The recognition lag is the time it takes for the authorities to discover the need to make a change in economic policy. The reasons for this type of lag are that statistical information is often somewhat behind the event and that it is sometimes difficult to distinguish between random fluctuations and fundamental shifts in economic trends. Governments prefer to wait until there is certainty that, say, an increase in unemployment is not a passing thing.
The decision lag is the period between the time when the need for action is recognized and the time when action is taken. Although the recognition lag is presumably of about the same duration for both monetary and fiscal policies, the decision lag is usually considerably shorter for monetary policy than for fiscal policy. The central bank can change monetary policy almost overnight, whereas a change in fiscal policy is more complex, both politically and administratively. In many countries changes in income taxes, for example, can be made only at the beginning of a calendar year; such changes are often complicated by political discussions in the legislative body.
The effect lag is the amount of time between the time action is taken and an effect is realized. Monetary policy involves longer delays than fiscal policy; the time between a change in monetary policy and its ultimate effect on private investment may be between one and two years.
Some economists argue that the sum of all the lags is so long and uncertain that the best strategy is not to take any action; by the time the effects occur the economic situation may be radically different. Some countries have tried to shorten the lags in fiscal and monetary policy. One way to reduce the recognition lag is to improve the forecasting techniques, for example, by using sophisticated questionnaires or computerized econometric models.
In order to reduce the decision lag in fiscal policy, some countries have given the authorities power to take limited action without the prior consent of the legislature. In the United Kingdom the government introduced a regulation that allowed it to make immediate changes in tax policy. In Belgium and West Germany the governments also have some discretionary powers to change tax rates without first asking the legislature. In most countries, however, the legislative bodies have been reluctant to give up control of the budget, and increasing skepticism about the effectiveness of stabilization policy has led to a retreat from frequent small adjustments to fiscal policy.
Attempts to shorten the effect lag of fiscal policy have produced new policy tools. Some countries now use systems of taxes or subsidies to influence business investment within a relatively short time. Attempts have also been made to reduce the effect lag in monetary policy. Some countries have tried using various tools of credit rationing rather than relying on traditional measures such as open market operations. But the effect lag is still a serious problem for monetary policy.
Perhaps the most serious unsolved problem of stabilization policy is the multiplicity of goals that policymakers must consider. Every government has aims other than stabilizing the economy. First, it must stay in powerâa need that is likely to limit the alternatives open to stabilization policy, particularly in periods of prosperity immediately before elections. Second, some monetary and fiscal actions impinge on particular groups in society, and governments may wish to avoid what appear to be discriminatory policies. Third, a policy designed to achieve one element of stabilization, such as full employment, may prevent the achievement of another.
The conflict between full employment and price stability seems to arise in two different sets of circumstances. Often wage increases that are made in the normal collective bargaining process are greater than the increases in labour productivity (or output per man-hour); such wage increases tend to increase the cost of production and to force prices upward. The government is then confronted with a choice between two unpleasant alternatives. One is to allow the general price level to rise approximately in proportion to the increase in production costs; the other alternative is to try to hold prices down by taking measures to restrict aggregate demand, thus making it difficult for firms to shift their increased costs to the consumer through higher prices. The latter alternative means increased unemployment. Many governments have been confronted with exactly this choice of alternatives. Wage gains made in collective bargaining have forced them to choose between allowing prices to move upward or attempting to hold prices stable at the cost of greater unemployment.
Another reason for the conflict between full employment and price stability is the tendency of wage increases to accelerate when the level of employment rises and the number of job vacancies increases. In other words, as the economy approaches full employment wages tend to rise at an increasing speed. As prices begin to rise, the conflict between full employment and price stability may be further exacerbated by the expectation that they will rise still further; this may, for example, induce employees and their organizations to press for greater wage increases than they otherwise would in order to compensate for the expected price increases.
Another conflict in policy may arise with respect to the balance of payments. When the economy is in a period of boom, there is a tendency for imports to increase, and sometimes for exports to decrease as well, with obvious difficulties for the balance of payments. The crisis may be heightened by short-term capital movements if buyers and sellers of foreign exchange expect that there may be a devaluation of the countryâs currency. This has caused much difficulty for many countries in the period since World War II. In Britain and Denmark, notably, periods of boom have usually been accompanied by balance-of-payments problems. When that occurs, the government must sooner or later take restrictive actions that slow the economy down and increase unemployment; if speculation in the currency is already under way, it may be necessary to pursue the restrictive policy far into the next recession. The problem is accentuated if there have been substantial price increases during the boom that have reduced the countryâs ability to compete with other countries. It is ironic that a temporary improvement in the employment situation may, if it leads to an accelerated increase in the price level, serve to create greater unemployment in the future, when restrictive actions become necessary for balance-of-payments reasons.
Attempts have been made to eliminate these conflicts of policy. One remedy is âincomes policy,â direct efforts by the government to prevent employers and unions from raising prices and wages. Various methods have been tried. The most moderate is the so-called guideposts system, under which the government announces the need for restraints on wage increases and perhaps also sets targets to guide unions and management; this was attempted in the United States in the early 1960s. In Sweden, responsibility for limiting wage increases has been assigned to labour-management organizations where bargaining takes place in a centralized fashion. A more interventionist approach is for the government to enter the bargaining process and try to persuade unions to limit their wage demands. The government may go still further and announce a wage freeze, or even a system of wage and price control. In the Netherlands, the courts have occasionally been empowered to set wages, but the resulting decisions have often been uncoordinated with the rest of stabilization policy.
Incomes policies have sometimes succeeded for short periods. Generally, however, public refusal to accept the restraints has eventually led to their collapse. In the United States, the guideposts broke down during the boom of the mid-1960s, and attempts at incomes policy in Sweden and Britain have not been notable for their success. Even in the Netherlands later attempts to impose the system have failed to limit the rate of wage increase.
