[...]In my view, a goal of price stability requires thatmonetary policy be oriented beyond the horizon of itsimmediate impact on inflation and the economy. Thisimmediate horizon is on the order of two to three years.This orientation properly puts the focus of a forwardlookingpolicy on the time...

[...]The first intellectual development challenging the use ofan activist monetary policy to stimulate output and reduceunemployment is the finding, most forcefully articulatedby Milton Friedman, that the effects of monetary policyhave long and variable lags.1 The uncertainty of the timingand...

[...]Inflation targeting in New Zealand followed legislationthat mandated a Policy Targets Agreement (PTA)between the elected government and the newlyindependent central bank, which resulted in a jointlydecided numerical target for inflation.[...]

[...]Inflation targeting in Canada was not the result oflegislation. However, as in New Zealand, the inflationtarget in Canada is jointly determined and announcedby both the government and the central bank.[...]

[...]Like the other countries examined, the United Kingdomadopted inflation targets after a successful disinflation.Unlike these countries, however, the UnitedKingdom took this step in the aftermath of a foreignexchange rate crisis in order to restore a nominalanchor and to lock in past...

[...]This paper traces the evolution of Fedwire fromtwelve separate payment operations, linked only by aninterdistrict communications arrangement, to a more unifiedand efficient system. Our account highlights both thedifficulties the Federal Reserve encountered as it soughtto standardize and...

Central bank policymakers are not primarilyrandom number generators.1 Reading boththe financial press and the work of academics,however, one might get the opposite impression.Reporters (and the readers of their stories) seem toattach considerable importance to each Federal OpenMarket Committee...

Several authors have documented a reduced variability ofoutput and inflation in the United States since the beginningof the 1980s.1 In fact, a comparison of the 1980:1-2001:2 periodwith the two preceding decades shows that the standarddeviation of quarterly output growth has fallen 30...

[...]This article explores in several ways the structure andvocabulary of emerging payments system risks and theirmitigation. We begin by recounting several incidents of fraudand losses associated with emerging payment methods. Wethen describe an economic framework for understanding riskcontrol...

The rapid growth of e-commerce and the Internet has led tothe development of new payment mechanisms capableof tapping the Internet’s unique potential for speed andconvenience. A recent and especially successful exampleof such a development is the personal on-line payment:a mechanism that uses...