Question

What is the basic objective of monetary policy? What are the major strengths of monetary policy? Why is monetary policy easier to conduct than fiscal policy in a highly divided national political environment? Which do you think is the most effective?

Answer 1

Answer: The answers to the question are provided below.

Explanation:

The basic objective of the monetary policy is to achieve economic growth, full employment, and price stability in an economy. The major strengths of the monetary policy are its flexibility and speed when compared to fiscal policy. Monetary policy is faster to implement and brings about desired changes faster.

Monetary policy is easier to conduct than fiscal policy because:

• Monetary policy is implemented by independent monetary authorities. Therefore, unpopular decisions such as the increase of interest rates to decrease inflationary pressure can be used.

• Fiscal Policy is the use of taxation and government spending to control economic activities but it is difficult to get a department that is willing to have its spending cut in order to help the economy.

• Increasing taxes will always be unpopular among individuals and firms and increasin corporations and income tax may lead to supply side effects. For example, increasing income tax may lead to the reduction in the incentives to work.

Fiscal and monetary policies are both effective. In a deep recession and a liquidity trap, the fiscal policy can be more effective than the monetary policy because the government creates job, pays for new investment schemes, rather than relying on the use of monetary policy to indirectly motivate businesses to invest. Likewise, the monetary policy is also more flexible and faster.