Fiscal, Monetary, and Reserve Requirement Policy in an Endogenous Economic Growth Model with Financial Market Imperfections

Abstract

A simple endogenous growth model is developed in a framework where informational imperfections in financial markets give rise to adverse selection as well as costly state verification problems and the government needs to intervene financial markets to monetize its deficits. In the model, adverse selection problem raises credit rationing and financial intermediaries arise endogenously due to costly state verification. Inflation is shown to influence the amount of credit rationing and economic growth. We then examine the effects of government fiscal and monetary policies on equilibrium inflation, the amount of credit rationing, and thus economic growth. Results show that multiple equilibria arise when the share of government deficits is relatively large. We also illustrate how the use of reserve requirement policy can eliminate high inflation equilibrium and enable the government to reduce the inflation rate. In sum, it is found that Tobin effect hold when there is no reserve requirement or it is not binding. However, if the reserve requirement is set too high, such a policy will raise the equilibrium inflation rate and reduce economic growth, leading to a violation of Tobin effect.