Reasoning within the New Neoclassical Synthesis (NNS) we previously recommended that price stability should be the primary objective of monetary policy. We called this a neutral policy because it keeps output at its potential, defined as the outcome of an imperfectly competitive real business...

The paper contains a theoretical discussion of the role of secrecy in the implementation of monetary policy. It documents the Federal Reserve's defense of secrecy as argued in a recent Freedom of Information Act suit. The Federal Reserve's arguments are evaluated on the basis of economic theory....

The paper describes key aspects of actual Federal Reserve interest rate targeting procedures and addresses a number of issues in light of these stylized facts. It reviews the connection between rate smoothing and price level trend-stationarity. It critiques interest rate targeting as inflation...

This article discusses a technical aspect of the Federal Reserve's monetary targeting procedure that has come to be known as "base drift." The Fed has been announcing larger ranges for the growth of M1 and other monetary aggregates since 1975. These ranges have been expressed in terms of rates...