Historical experience suggests that the distribution of monetary policy authority among the members of a monetary union is a key aspect of the design of a central bank constitution. We analyse alternative institutional solutions to that problem with different degrees of centralization of...

This paper is an attempt to provide an updated assessment of what we know and what do not know about the impact of monetary policy on the economy and what implications follow for the conduct of monetary policy in today's world. Firstly, we discuss the conditions under which monetary policy can...

In this paper we investigate central bank accountability by looking at the effect of transparency in a simple monetary policy game with an overriding mechanism. Monetary policy is transparent if there is little uncertainty about the central banker's preferences for inflation stabilization...

The roles of central banks in the advanced economies have expanded and multiplied since the beginning of the crisis. The conventional monetary policy roles - setting interest rates in the pursuit of macroeconomic stability and acting as lender of last resort and market maker of last resort to...

This Paper compares the social efficiency of monetary targeting and inflation targeting when central banks may have private information on shocks to money demand and, because of verifiability problems, the transparency solution is not feasible. Under inflation targeting and monetary targeting,...

This paper presents a model of monetary policy-making in a federal monetary union. Central bank council members are representatives from the member states. In a repeated-game context, council members have an incentive to engage in strategic voting, trading political favours between each other....

Starting in the early 1990s, several emerging market and transition economies (EMEs) have adopted inflation targeting (IT). In this Paper we discuss a number of issues that arise in this context: (a) the definition of IT, (b) the role of preconditions for IT, (c) the use of intermediate exchange...

We examine global dynamics under learning in New Keynesian models with price level targeting that is subject to the zero lower bound. The role of forward guidance is analyzed under transparency about the policy rule. Properties of transparent and non-transparent regimes are compared to each...

Most analyses of banking crises assume that banks use real contracts. However, in practice contracts are nominal and this is what is assumed here. We consider a standard banking model with aggregate return risk, aggregate liquidity risk and idiosyncratic liquidity shocks. We show that, with...

Using indirect inference based on a VAR we confront US data from 1972 to 2007 with a standard New Keynesian model in which an optimal timeless policy is substituted for a Taylor rule. We find the model explains the data both for the Great Acceleration and the Great Moderation. The implication is...