April 2007
Seigniorage
Willem Buiter
Abstract
Governments through the ages have appropriated real resources through the monopoly of the ‘coinage’. In modern fiat money economies, the monopoly of the issue of legal tender is generally assigned to an agency of the state, the Central Bank, which may have varying degrees of operational and target independence from the government of the day.
In this paper I analyse four different but related concepts, each of which highlights some aspect of the way in which the state acquires command over real resources through its ability to issue fiat money. They are (1) seigniorage (the change in the monetary base), (2) Central Bank revenue (the interest bill saved by the authorities on the outstanding stock of base money liabilities), (3) the inflation tax (the reduction in the real value of the stock of base money due to inflation and (4) the operating profits of the central bank, or the taxes paid by the Central Bank to the Treasury.
To understand the relationship between these four concepts, an explicitly intertemporal approach is required, which focuses on the present discounted value of the current and future resource transfers between the private sector and the state. Furthermore, when the Central Bank is operationally independent, it is essential to decompose the familiar consolidated ‘government budget constraint’ and consolidated ‘government intertemporal budget constraint’ into the separate accounts and budget constraints of the Central Bank and the Treasury. Only by doing this can we appreciate the financial constraints on the Central Bank’s ability to pursue and achieve an inflation target, and the importance of cooperation and coordination between the Treasury and the Central Bank when faced with financial sector crises involving the need for long-term recapitalisation or when confronted with the need to mimic Milton Friedman’s helicopter drop of money in an economy faced with a liquidity trap.
Key Words: inflation tax; central bank budget constraint; coordination of monetary and fiscal policy
JEL Classifications: E4, E5, E6, H6
This paper was produced as part of the Centre’s Macro Programme. The Centre for Economic Performance is financed by the Economic and Social Research Council.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Charles Goodhart, Michael Bordo, Marc Flandreau and Anne Sibert for helpful comments.
Willem Buiter is a Research Associate with the Macro Programme, Centre for Economic Performance, London School of Economics. He is also Chair of European Political Economy, European Institute, LSE.
Published by
Centre for Economic Performance
London School of Economics and Political Science
Houghton Street
London WC2A 2AE
Nel documento Buiter dice che le banche centrali non hanno a disposizione lo strumento "H" nel loro arsenale. Ma la cartolarizzazione dei diritti di signoraggio offrirebbe proprio questo... si tratta cioè di riconoscere ai cittadini (sovrani) una cifra cash in cambio del loro affidamento della gestione dei proventi da signoraggio al sistema bancario. Un uovo di Colombo che è sfuggito alla London School...
RispondiEliminaInfatti scrive: "Even if the economic mechanism of the helicopter drop of money is straightforward, its
RispondiEliminapractical implementation cannot be done by the Central Bank alone. The reason is that in reality
central banks do not have an instrument like H in their arsenals."
"The solvency constraint of the Central Bank only requires that the present discounted value of its net non-monetary liabilities be non-positive in the long run. Its monetary liabilities are liabilities only in name, as they are irredeemable: the holder of base money cannot insist at any time on the redemption of a given amount of base money into anything else other than the same amount of itself (base money)."
RispondiEliminaOra che abbiamo la testimonianza scritta di Buiter, della London School of Economics, occorre firmare la petizione per la revisione dei bilanci della Banca Centrale Europea, al più presto. Siamo a quota 477, mancano 23 firme per arrivare a 500. Aggiungi il tuo contributo firmando anche tu:
RispondiEliminahttp://www.petitiononline.com/auditecb/petition.html
Si però dove sarebbero nascosti tutti i soldi frutto di questa maxi evasione fiscale ?
RispondiEliminaSe non si portano prove i negazionisti avranno sempre l'ultima parola.
Il sistema di occultamento dei capitali da parte delle centrali internazionali di compensazione interbancaria è stato denunciato per la prima volta dal giornalista investigativo Denis Robert nel libro REVELATIONS che io ho tradotto in italiano e pubblicato sotto il titolo SOLDI - IL LIBRO NERO DELLA FINANZA INTERNAZIONALE. I 17.000 conti neri di Clearstream sono pubblicati su SCRIBD alla voce Clearstream accounts. Ora, lasciamo lavorare la magistratura.
RispondiElimina