This introductory essay briefly summarizes the eleven empirical studies of price setting and price adjustment that are included in this special issue. The studies, which use data from several European countries, were conducted as part of the European Central Bank's Inflation Persistence Network.

The authors consider inflation and government debt dynamics when monetary policy employs a global interest rate rule and private agents forecast using adaptive learning. Because of the zero lower bound on interest rates, active interest rate rules are known to imply the existence of a second,...

The design of interest rate rules for conducting monetary policy have recently been examined for two key concerns. The first issue is determinacy of equilibria. Indeterminacy (multiplicity of stationary rational expectations equilibria) is a concern in models of monopolistic competition and...