This paper describes a new data set of the forecasts of output growth, inflation, and unemployment prepared by individual members of the Federal Open Market Committee. The paper discusses the scope of the data set, possibilities for extending it, and some potential uses. It offers a preliminary...

The US Federal Reserve cut interest rates more vigorously in the recent recession than the European Central Bank did. By comparison with the Fed, the ECB followed a more measured course of action. We use an estimated dynamic general equilibrium model with financial frictions to show that...

We describe two examples which illustrate in different ways how money and credit may be useful in the conduct of monetary policy. Our first example shows how monitoring money and credit can help anchor private sector expectations about inflation. Our second example shows that a monetary policy...

In the wake of the 1997-98 financial crises, interest rates in Asia were raised immediately, and then reduced sharply. We describe an environment in which this is the optimal monetary policy. The optimality of the immediate rise in the interest rate is an example of the theory of the second...

This paper studies optimal monetary policy under dynamic debt deleveraging once the zero bound is binding. Unlike the existing literature, the natural rate of interest is endogenous and depends on macroeconomic policy. Optimal monetary policy successfully raises the natural rate of interest by...

Monetary policy in the United States in the 1950s was remarkably modern. Analysis of Federal Reserve records shows that policymakers had an overarching aversion to inflation and were willing to accept significant costs to prevent it from rising to even moderate levels. This aversion to inflation...

Inflation targeting offers the promise of introducing to monetary policy a logic and consistency that some central banks' deliberations sorely missed in the past. At least in today's inherited monetary policymaking context, however, inflation targeting also serves two further objectives that are...

Most central banks, including the U.S. Federal Reserve System, implement their monetary policy by setting interest rates. This paper reviews the major changes that have taken place along the way from the Federal Reserve's interest rate-based policy structure of the 1960s to the interest...

We present a model embodying moderate amounts of nominal rigidities which accounts for the observed inertia in inflation and persistence in output. The key features of our model are those that prevent a sharp rise in marginal costs after an expansionary shock to monetary policy. Of these...