The United Kingdom is a highly open economy, and has a monetary policy strategy of targeting inflation in consumer prices. In this Paper, we look at the evidence from the UK on inflation behaviour, and examine the propositions from several theoretical models about inflation dynamics in an open...

The volatile data for inflation, output, and interest rates in the United Kingdom prior to the 1990s, and the relative macroeconomic stability associated with inflation targeting, provide a rich basis for discriminating between rival explanations for the outbreak of stagflation. We examine...

This Paper reviews the distinction between the timeless perspective and discretionary modes of monetary policymaking, the former representing rule-based policy as recently formalized by Woodford (1999b). In models with forward-looking expectations there is typically a second inefficiency from...

Meltzer (1999a) shows that real monetary base growth is a significant determinant of consumption growth in the United States, controlling for the short-term real interest rate. In this paper, I show that the same property of base money holds for total output (relative to trend or potential) in...

This Paper discusses criticisms of the IS-LM framework in the macroeconomic literature of the last 40 years, and how the modern optimizing version of IS-LM addresses those criticisms. It is argued that models that include the optimizing IS-LM specification are legitimate vehicles for dynamic...

This paper considers the Great Inflation of the 1970s in Japan and Germany. From 1975 onward these countries had low inflation relative to other large economies. Traditionally, this success is attributed to stronger discipline on the part of Japan and Germany’s monetary authorities - for...

We examine the role of money in three environments: the New Keynesian model with separable utility and static money demand; a nonseparable utility variant with habit formation; and a version with adjustment costs for holding real balances. The last two variants imply forward-looking behaviour of...

A long-standing area of research and policy interest has been the construction of a measure of monetary policy stance. One measure that has been proposed—as an alternative to indices that employ monetary aggregates or exchange rates—is the spread between the actual real interest rate and its...

The recent literature on monetary policy in the presence of a zero lower bound on interest rates has shown that forward guidance regarding the path of interest rates can be very effective in preserving macroeconomic stability in the face of a contractionary demand shock; moreover, that...

The ‘new open-economy macroeconomics’ seeks to provide an improved basis for monetary and exchange-rate policy through the construction of open-economy models that feature rational expectations, optimizing agents, and slowly adjusting prices of goods. This Paper promotes an alternative...