The paper is not aimed at providing a theoretical basis for partisan economic fluctuations, as for instance in Alesina (1987) and Drazen (2000). In practice, it may be hard to match directly political parties with systematic and successful changes in
central bank policy. In this respect, the novelty of our analysis is to show how the possibility of future policy changes already produces effects in earlier periods. Following the recent literature on monetary policy, we model inflation dynamics with a New Keynesian Phillips curve, where expectations about future economic conditions affect current outcomes. Our analysis thus clarifies the theoretical difficulties to find a clear relationship between economic outcomes and policymakers’ objectives. We indeed show that if liberal objectives can be adopted in the future, high inflation
may be the optimal response of a conservative central bank. We can thus observe
a high level of inflation no matter whether liberal objectives are eventually adopted
or not.