A Equivalência Fiscal de Quantitative Easing

Como explicada por Narayana Kocherlakota:

I believe that QE is a move in the right direction. However, as I have discussed on earlier occasions, I also think there are good reasons to suspect that the ultimate effects of any amount of QE are likely to be relatively modest. That’s why I would have greatly preferred for the committee to have been able to cut its target rate rather than using QE. The problem is that its target rate is already essentially at zero, and so it was not possible to cut the target rate any further.

Given this constraint on monetary policy, I believe it is important to ask if it is possible to synthesize the effects of a one-year interest rate cut of, say, 100 basis points using fiscal policy tools. In his current and past work, Minneapolis Fed staff researcher Juan Pablo Nicolini and his co-authors have answered this question in the affirmative.Their key insight is that there is a broad equivalence between monetary and fiscal policy. They argue that the essence of an FOMC interest rate cut is that it makes current consumption cheaper relative to future consumption. With that in mind, the fiscal authorities can use the time path of consumption taxes to accomplish this same change in relative prices.

O artifício fiscal para conseguir equivalência é bastante interessante, envolve aumento futuro de imposto sobre consumo e redução de impostos sobre trabalho e investimento. Mas tenho dúvidas de que tal artifício possa ser implementado na íntegra, por causa da presença de distorções políticas na elaboração de política fiscal.