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Conference Paper
The inflation/output variability trade-off revisited
Working Paper
The Federal Reserve in a globalized world economy
This paper starts from the theoretical observation that simple rules-based monetary policy will result in good economic performance in a globalized world economy and the historical observation that this occurred during the Great Moderation period of the 1980s and 1990s. It tries to answer a question posed by Paul Volcker in 2014 about the global repercussions of monetary policies pursued by advanced economy central banks in recent years. I start by explaining the basic theoretical framework, its policy implications, and its historical relevance. I then review the empirical evidence on the ...
Working Paper
The monetary transmission mechanism: an empirical framework
This paper describes an empirical framework for analyzing the monetary transmission mechanism through which changes in monetary policy affect real GDP and inflation. The framework reflects the work of a large number of empirical researchers who have built econometric models of the impacts of monetary policy on real interest rates and real exchange rates. The framework is international in its scope and emphasizes the prices of financial assets rather than the quantities of these assets. In most cases expectations are assumed to be rational and the prices of goods and services are ...
Conference Paper
A black swan in the money market
The recent financial crisis saw a dramatic and persistent jump in interest rate spreads between overnight federal funds and longer-term interbank loans. The Fed took several actions to reduce these spreads, including the creation of the Term Auction Facility (TAF). The effectiveness of these policies depends on the cause of the increased spreads?whether counterparty risk, liquidity, or other factors. Using a no-arbitrage pricing framework and various measures of risk, we find robust evidence that increased a counterparty risk contributed to the rise in spreads, but do not find robust evidence ...
Working Paper
Simple and robust rules for monetary policy
This paper focuses on simple normative rules for monetary policy which central banks can use to guide their interest rate decisions. Such rules were first derived from research on empirical monetary models with rational expectations and sticky prices built in the 1970s and 1980s. During the past two decades substantial progress has been made in establishing that such rules are robust. They perform well with a variety of newer and more rigorous models and policy evaluation methods. Simple rules are also frequently more robust than fully optimal rules. Important progress has also been made in ...
Working Paper
A Black Swan in the Money Market
At the center of the financial market crisis of 2007-2008 was a highly unusual jump in spreads between the overnight inter-bank lending rate and term London inter-bank offer rates (Libor). Because many private loans are linked to Libor rates, the sharp increase in these spreads raised the cost of borrowing and interfered with monetary policy. The widening spreads became a major focus of the Federal Reserve, which took several actions–including the introduction of a new term auction facility (TAF)–to reduce them. This paper documents these developments and, using a no-arbitrage model of ...