Academic economists have perennially made arguments for the conduct of monetary policy constrained by an explicit rule. These arguments have gone nowhere. This paper advances a proposal to clarify Fed objectives and strategy in order to facilitate discussion leading to consensus over a desirable...

Since 2008, the Eurozone has undergone two recessions, which together constitute the "Great Recession." The combination of a decline in output and disinflation as well as a persistent decline in inflation suggests that contractionary monetary policy was one factor. This paper makes two...

Since the establishment of the Federal Reserve System in 1913, policymakers have always pursued the goal of economic stability. At the same time, their understanding of the world and of the role of monetary policy has changed dramatically. This evolution of views provides a laboratory for...

In response to the pandemic, which unfurled starting in March 2020 and raised unemployment dramatically, the FOMC adopted a highly expansionary monetary policy. The policy restored the activist policy of aggregate demand management that had characterized the 1970s. It did so in two respects....

Since 2008, the Eurozone has undergone two recessions, which together constitute the Great Recession. The explanation offered here attributes them to contractionary monetary policy. Interpreted in a way consistent with monetarist principles, the New Keynesian model provides the framework for...

The FOMC lacks systematic procedures for learning from experience what monetary policies have stabilized the economy and what monetary policies have destabilized it. Standard Fed narrative prevents such learning by assuming that all adverse outcomes arise from external shocks, which the Fed...

The monetary standard emerges out of the interaction of monetary policy with the structure of the economy. Characterization of the monetary standard thus requires specification of a model of the economy with a central bank reaction function. Such a specification raises all the fundamental issues...