Despite sound theoretical foundations a drawback of the New Keynesian model is its inability to generate adequate persistence in the variables it seeks to explain. A common solution is to modify the model to include lagged variables. However, this is unsatisfactory as many such modifications...

Using New Keynesian models, we compare Friedman’s k-percent money supply rule to optimal interest rate setting, with respect to determinacy, stability under learning and optimality. We first review the recent literature. Open-loop interest rate rules are subject to indeterminacy and...

We investigate both the rational explosive inflation paths studied by McCallum (2001) and the classification of fiscal and monetary policies proposed by Leeper (1991) for stability under learning of rational expectations equilibria (REE). Our first result is that the fiscalist REE in the model...

We review the recent work on interest rate setting, which emphasizes the desirability of designing policy to ensure stability under private agent learning. Appropriately designed expectations based rules can yield optimal rational expectations equilibria that are both determinate and stable...