This brief exposition suggests that the Federal Reserve System temporarily guarantee a lower bound on stock prices in order to escape the current combination of liquidity trap and credit crunch. It shortly discusses reasons for this measure, consequences, and some alternatives. It is meant as a...

In this paper we show that we can replace the assumption of constant discount rate in the one-sector optimal growth model with the assumption of decreasing marginal impatience without losing major properties of the model. In particular, we show that the steady state exists, is unique, and has a...

We show that price level stabilization is not optimal in an economy where agents have incomplete knowledge about the policy implemented and try to learn it. A systematically more accommodative policy than what agents expect generates short term gains without triggering an abrupt loss of...

We derive the optimal monetary policy in a sticky price model when private agents follow adaptive learning. We show that this slight departure from rationality has important implications for policy design. The central bank faces a new intertemporal trade-off, not present under rational...

This paper presents a theoretical framework analysing the signalling channel of exchange rate interventions as an informational trigger. We develop an implicit target zone framework with learning in order to model the signalling channel. The theoretical premise of the model is that interventions...

This paper empirically studies the impact of the quality of political institutions on the link between central bank independence and inflation. Making use of data on the evolution of central bank independence over time and controlling for possible nonlinearities, we employ interaction models to...

Theory and evidence suggest that in an environment of well-anchored expectations, temporary news or shocks to economic variables, should not affect agents’ expectations of inflation in the long term. Our estimated structural VARs show that both long- and short-term inflation expectations are...

This paper presents a stress indicator for the Euro-zone that summarizes developments of trends and cycles in real GDP and inflation in the member countries. Stress in a country is defined as the difference between the country’s actual short-term interest rate and the interest rate that would...

This paper surveys recent advances in the monetary transmission mechanism (MTM). In particular, while laying out the functioning of the separate channels in the MTM, special attention is paid to exploring possible interrelations between different channels through which they may amplify or...

This paper explores time variation in the dynamic effects of technology shocks on U.S. output, prices, interest rates as well as real and nominal wages. The results indicate considerable time variation in U.S. wage dynamics that can be linked to the monetary policy regime. Before and after the...