Search Results
Journal Article
Monetary policy and learning
A new strand of macroeconomic literature examines the relationship between learning and monetary policy-how monetary policymakers learn about the economy as they try to achieve their goals, how the public learns about policymakers' objectives, and how the public's learning, in turn, changes the way monetary policy works. An Atlanta Fed conference in March 2003 brought together some of the main contributors to this emerging literature. ; In the conference keynote address, reprinted here, Lars Svensson focused on what constitutes good monetary policy and how it is related to central-bank ...
Working Paper
Policy rules for inflation targeting
Policy rules that are consistent with inflation targeting are examined in a small macroeconometric model of the US economy. We compare the properties and outcomes of explicit "instrument rules" as well as "targeting rules." The latter, which imply implicit instrument rules, may be closer to actual operating procedures of inflation-targeting central banks. We find that inflation forecasts are central for good policy rules under inflation targeting. Some simple instrumental and targeting rules do remarkably well relative to the optimal rule; others, including some that are often used as ...
Conference Paper
Indicator variables for optimal policy
The optimal weights on indicators in models with partial information about the state of the economy and forward-looking variables are derived and interpreted, both for equilibria under discretion and under commitment. An example of optimal monetary policy with a partially observable potential output and a forward-looking indicator is examined. The optimal response to the optimal estimate of potential output displays certainty-equivalence, whereas the optimal response to the imperfect observation of output depends on the noise in this observation.
Conference Paper
Policy rules for inflation targeting
Conference Paper
Monetary policy issues for the Eurosystem
Conference Paper
Monetary policy after the crisis
Working Paper
Eurosystem monetary targeting: lessons from U.S. data.
Using a small empirical model of inflation, output, and money estimated on U.S. data, we compare the relative performance of monetary targeting and inflation targeting. The results show that monetary targeting would be quite inefficient, with both higher inflation and output variability. This is true even with a deterministic money demand formulation. In this framework, there is thus no support for the prominent role given to money growth in the Eurosystem's monetary policy strategy.
Working Paper
Current Account Dynamics and Monetary Policy
We explore the implications of current account adjustment for monetary policy within a simple two country DSGE model. Our framework nests Obstfeld and Rogoff's (2005) static model of exchange rate responsiveness to current account reversals. It extends this approach by endogenizing the dynamic adjustment path and by incorporating production and nominal price rigidities in order to study the role of monetary policy. We consider two different adjustment scenarios. The first is a "slow burn"where the adjustment of the current account deficit of the home country is smooth and slow. The second is ...
Working Paper
Optimal policy projections
We outline a method to provide advice on optimal monetary policy while taking policymakers' judgment into account. The method constructs optimal policy projections (OPPs) by extracting the judgment terms that allow a model, such as the Federal Reserve Board staff economic model, FRB/US, to reproduce a forecast, such as the Greenbook forecast. Given an intertemporal loss function that represents monetary policy objectives, OPPs are the projections---of target variables, instruments, and other variables of interest---that minimize that loss function for given judgment terms. The method is ...
Working Paper
Expected and predicted realignments: the FF/DM exchange rate during the EMS
An empirical model of time-varying realignment risk in an exchange rate target zone is developed. Expected rates of devaluation are estimated as the difference between interest rate differentials and estimated expected rates of depreciation within the exchange rate band, using French Franc/Deutsche Mark data during the European Monetary System. The behavior of estimated expected rates of depreciation accord well with the theoretical model of Bertola-Svensson (1990). We are also able to predict actual realignments with some success.