• Graduate Programs
  • Research
  • Browse our Courses
  • Events
    • Events Calendar
    • Events Archive
    • Summer School
      • Applied Public Policy Evaluation
      • Deep Learning
      • Development Economics
      • Economics of Blockchain and Digital Currencies
      • Economics of Climate Change
      • The Economics of Crime
      • Foundations of Machine Learning with Applications in Python
      • From Preference to Choice: The Economic Theory of Decision-Making
      • Inequalities in Health and Healthcare
      • Marketing Research with Purpose
      • Markets with Frictions
      • Modern Toolbox for Spatial and Functional Data
      • Sustainable Finance
      • Tuition Fees and Payment
      • Business Data Science Summer School Program
    • Tinbergen Institute Lectures
    • 2026 Tinbergen Institute Opening Conference
    • Annual Tinbergen Institute Conference
  • News
  • Summer School
    • Applied Public Policy Evaluation
    • Deep Learning
    • Development Economics
    • Economics of Blockchain and Digital Currencies
    • Economics of Climate Change
    • The Economics of Crime
    • Foundations of Machine Learning with Applications in Python
    • From Preference to Choice: The Economic Theory of Decision-Making
    • Inequalities in Health and Healthcare
    • Marketing Research with Purpose
    • Markets with Frictions
    • Modern Toolbox for Spatial and Functional Data
    • Sustainable Finance
    • Tuition Fees and Payment
  • Alumni

Beetsma, R. and Bovenberg, A. (2005). Structural Distortions and Decentralized Fiscal Policies in EMU Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, 37(6):1001--1018.


  • Journal
    Journal of Money, Credit and Banking

The combination of discretionary monetary policy, labor-market distortions, and nominal wage rigidity yields excessive inflation as monetary policy tries to exploit nominal wage contracts to address labor-market distortions. An inflation target reduces inflation, but creates a conflict between monetary policy and discretionary fiscal policy if fiscal policy is set at a higher frequency than nominal wages are. Preventing the associated excessive accumulation of public debt calls for debt ceilings. If countries differ substantially in terms of structural distortions, uniform debt ceilings must be complemented by country-specific debt targets in order to prevent decentralized fiscal authorities from employing debt policy strategically.