The fiscal theory of the price level and monetary policy: An agenda
April 1, 2016. Slides for a talk at the Next Steps for the Fiscal Theory of the Price Level conference at the Becker-Friedman Institute, April 1 2016. The Fiscal Theory is that the real value of nominal debt equals the present value of primary surpluses. The agenda is making this fact come alive in the analysis of history, of data, of policy, and of better monetary and fiscal regimes. To that end, I argue we've paid to much attention to surpluses, and not enough to discount rates or to debt and monetary policy. I show how we need discount rates to understand the cyclical variation of inflation, and how monetary policy is quite strong in the fiscal theory, by the ability to control nominal interest rates and thus expected inflation.