Search Results
Journal Article
Monetary policy and the M2 target
An analysis of the Federal Reserve's use of the M2 monetary aggregate as both a short-term and long-term policy guide, asserting that the FOMC's tentative target range for M2 growth in 1990 permits ample opportunity for the inflation rate to either accelerate or decline during the next few years.
Working Paper
Federal reserve credibility and the market's response to the weekly M1 announcements
A presentation of new evidence on the issue of Federal Reserve System credibility, examining the response pattern of asset prices to the weekly M1 announcements under different operating procedures and monetary policy regimes.
Journal Article
Inside the briefcase: the art of predicting the Federal Reserve
We all know the size of the Fed chairman's briefcase as a policy indicator is a joke. But would knowing what's inside the briefcase be of real help?
Journal Article
Humphrey-Hawkins: the July monetary policy report
A review of the Federal Reserve System's July 1988 Monetary Policy Report to Congress, indicating a decline in the role of monetary aggregates in the policy process and including the Federal Open Market Committee's projection of economic conditions.
Journal Article
Consumer price inflation and housing prices
Journal Article
The FOMC in 1995: a step closer to inflation targeting?
Journal Article
Recent trends in homeownership
The homeownership rate began to trend upward in 1995 after years of being relatively constant, near 64 percent. This article describes recent changes in the share of U.S. housing that is owner-occupied and explores the reasons for the surprising rise over the past decade. Explanations that have been offered include demographics, low mortgage rates, changes in housing policy, and innovations in the mortgage financial market. Of all these explanations, the most plausible one is that innovations in the financial markets increased access to mortgage finance, mainly by reducing downpayment ...
Working Paper
Monetary policy, the tax code, and the real effects of energy shocks
This paper develops a monetary model with taxes to account for the apparently asymmetric and time-varying effects of energy shocks on output and hours worked in post-World War II U.S. data. In our model, the real effects of an energy shock are amplified when the monetary authority responds to that shock by changing its inflation objective. Specifically, higher inflation raises households? nominal capital gains taxes since those taxes are not indexed to inflation. The increase in taxes behaves as a negative wealth effect and generates an immediate decline in output, investment, and hours ...
Journal Article
Unemployment insurance claims and economic activity
Economic forecasters pay especially close attention to labor market indicators during periods of economic uncertainty. Labor market data are thought to provide early evidence about changes in the course of the economy. This article examines whether monthly changes in labor market indicators are useful for predicting real GDP. It then examines whether weekly changes in initial and continuing unemployment insurance claims are useful for helping to predict changes in important labor market indicators. Incoming monthly data on nonfarm payroll jobs and the index of aggregate weekly hours help ...
Working Paper
Monetary policy and real interest rates: new evidence from the money stock announcements
This paper presents new evidence on how asset prices respond to new information about the money stock. It shows that the information content of money stock announcements and the response of asset prices to new information in the announcements vary with changes in the monetary policy regime, the Federal Reserve operating procedures, and the reserve accounting rules. While previous studies have examined how asset prices respond to the money stock announcements under the interest-rate targeting procedure and the nonborrowed reserve procedure, we have included new evidence from the borrowed ...