Universitätspublikationen
Refine
Document Type
- Working Paper (2)
- Report (1)
Language
- English (3)
Has Fulltext
- yes (3)
Is part of the Bibliography
- no (3)
Keywords
- monetary transmission mechanism (2)
- EU (1)
- betrayal aversion (1)
- debt sustainability (1)
- euro area (1)
- fiscal reaction function (1)
- trust (1)
- trust driven expectations (1)
- trust evolutionary games (1)
- trust games (1)
Institute
- Center for Financial Studies (CFS) (3) (remove)
Trust in policy makers fluctuates signiÂ…cantly over the cycle and affects the transmission mechanism. Despite this it is absent from the literature. We build a monetary model embedding trust cycles; the latter emerge as an equilibrium phenomenon of a game-theoretic interaction between atomistic agents and the monetary authority. Trust affects agents' stochastic discount factors, namely the price of future risk, and through this it interacts with the monetary transmission mechanism. Using data from the Eurobarometer surveys, we analyze the link between trust and the transmission mechanism of macro and monetary shocks: Empirical results are in line with theoretical ones.
The paper looks at the determinants of fiscal adjustments as reflected in the primary surplus of countries. Our conjecture is that governments will usually find it more attractive to pursue fiscal adjustments in a situation of relatively high growth, but based on a simple stylized model of government behavior the expectation is that mainly high trust governments will be in a position to defer consolidation to years with higher growth. Overall, our analysis of a panel of European countries provides support for this expectation. The difference in fiscal policies depending on government trust levels may help explaining why better governed countries have been found to have less severe business cycles. It suggests that trust and credibility play an important role not only in monetary policy, but also in fiscal policy.
The efficacy of monetary authority actions depends primarily on the ability of the monetary authority to affect inflation expectations, which ultimately depend on agents' trust. We propose a model embedding trust cycles, as emerging from sequential coordination games between atomistic agents and the policy maker, in a monetary model. Trust affects agents' stochastic discount factor, namely the price of future risk, and their expectation formation process: these effects in turn interact with the monetary transmission mechanism. Using data from the Eurobarometer survey we analyze the link between trust on the one side and the transmission mechanism of shocks and of the policy rate on the other: data show that the two interact significantly and in a way comparable to the obtained in our model.