This paper analyzes the role of transparency and credibility in accounting for the widely divergent macroeconomic effects of three episodes of deliberate monetary contraction: the post-Civil War deflation, the post-WWI deflation, and the Volcker disinflation. Using a dynamic general equilibrium...

The recovery from the recession after the financial crisis, in both the UK and the US, has been very slow compared with other similar events in history. During the period before the financial crash and afterwards, monetary policy deviated from the very effeective rules-based approach of the...

Canada played an important role in the postwar establishment of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), yet it was also the first major member to challenge the orthodoxy of the BrettonWoods par value system by abandoning it in 1950 in favour of a floating, market-determined exchange rate....

This paper shows that the monetary policy paradigm that was in place before the financial crisis worked very well and that the crisis occurred only after policy makers deviated from that paradigm. The paper also evaluates monetary policy during the financial crisis by dividing the crisis into...

Why legislate a policy rule now? Because monetary policy has recently become more discretionary, more short-term focused. My research shows that discretionary actions were, on balance, harmful. But even if one disagrees, such actions should raise concerns about a monetary system in which a great...

Under the classical gold standard (1880-1914), the Bank of France maintained a stable discount rate while the Bank of England changed its rate very frequently. Why did the policies of these central banks, the two pillars of the gold standard, differ so much? How did the Bank of France manage to...

We consider the debut of a new monetary instrument, central bank digital currencies (CBDCs). Drawing on examples from monetary history, we argue that a successful monetary transformation must combine microeconomic efficiency with macroeconomic credibility. A paradoxical feature of these...

We consider the debut of a new monetary instrument, central bank digital currencies (CBDCs). Drawing on examples from monetary history, we argue that a successful monetary transformation must combine microeconomic efficiency with macroeconomic credibility. A paradoxical feature of these...

This paper shows that the monetary policy paradigm that was in place before the financial crisis worked very well and that the crisis occurred only after policy makers deviated from that paradigm. The paper also evaluates monetary policy during the financial crisis by dividing the crisis into...

This talk emphasizes the connection between inflation targeting and monetary policy rules. Inflation targeting is not enough. You need to have a policy procedure - a policy rule - to achieve the target. And one cannot design or evaluate a monetary policy rule without a target inflation rate....