This paper examines the role of monetary credibility and fiscal cyclicality in generating the trade‐off between inflation rates and financial stability. We systematically develop simple theoretical models to shape the rationalisation framework, which demonstrates the role of fiscal cyclicality behaviour in arousing a trade‐off for the monetary policy to target low inflation rates and a stable financial system at the same time. By utilising the generalised method of moment (GMM), we find that a credible monetary policy generates a trade‐off between inflation and financial stability as long as the fiscal policy is procyclical.

This paper examines episodes of capital bonanzas and sudden stops in Indonesia by utilising binary response models and several episode-identification approaches. Our identification suggests that whenever bonanza episodes occurred, capital sudden stop episodes followed in a more extended period. The estimations demonstrate that domestic factors are relatively dominant in determining the capital bonanzas, and the federal funds rate has a more significant impact on inducing the probability of capital sudden stops in Indonesia. We also found that Turkey and South Africa are the most contagious economies for Indonesia. This paper proposes some policy reforms to enhance the stability of capital inflows in Indonesia, including financial regulation and public finance policies such as a reverse Tobin tax and market-driven public debt rules.

If indiscipline fiscal policy could affect the monetary policy’s objective and effectiveness, is it necessarily mean that the status quo of monetary policy credibility would also be impacted? This paper addresses the issue by constructing a simple theoretical model and conducting empirical investigations using a dataset from 25 selected Inflation Targeting Framework countries throughout 2003-2017. By employing the Generalized Method of Moments, we find that the monetary policy will remain the status quo credible as the central bank would optimally respond to the disturbances originated from procyclical fiscal policy. However, such a response potentially crowds out domestic investment and slows down the economy, and induces financial instability. This implies that bearing the eye only on the status quo credibility of monetary policy is not sufficient, and the consideration over the fiscal policy behavior becomes crucial.

This paper investigates Yardstick Competition among local governments in decentralized Indonesia by distinguishing bad from good incumbent behavior. By doing so, this paper provides a more explicit connection between theoretical foundation and empirical investigation, where political incumbency is viewed based on the political economy perspective. Given that voters can compare and benchmark their incumbent's performance, an incumbent who aims for the throne twice must consider neighboring local governments' performance as the reference, leading to strategic interaction across local governments. We conduct empirical examinations using Two-regime Spatial Econometrics for panel data consisting of 99 local governments in the West, Central, and East Java Provinces from 2010 to 2017. Our empirical estimation results confirm that mimicking behavior by bad incumbents, characterized by the underperformed public sector, is evident. Bad incumbents mimic their neighbor's public spending. However, we find no evidence of Yardstick Competition by incumbents in general.