The central tenet of inflation targeting is the anchoring of inflation expectations. In this paper, we reexamine the role of key elements of the inflation targeting framework towards this end, in the context of an economy where economic agents have an imperfect understanding of the macroeconomic...

We develop an estimated model of the U.S. economy in which agents form expectations by continually updating their beliefs regarding the behavior of the economy and monetary policy. We explore the effects of policymakers' misperceptions of the natural rate of unemployment during the late 1960s...

In recent years, a number of researchers have advocated monetary policy rules for setting the short-term nominal interest rate rules in response to forecasts of inflation, rather than recent outcomes of a limited set of macroeconomic variables such as the well-known Taylor rule. Furthermore,...

We consider a neoclassical interpretation of Germany and Japan's rapid postwar growth that relies on a catch-up mechanism through capital accumulation where technology is embodied in new capital goods. Using a putty-clay model of production and investment, we are able to capture many of the key...

In the presence of nominal rigidities, monetary policy can potentially improve welfare by reducing the magnitude of short-run fluctuations in inflation and resource utilization. According to a standard view of the monetary transmission mechanism, monetary policy stimulates economic activity by...

Recently, increasing attention is being devoted to interest rate rules that respond directly to economic forecasts rather than relying on current and past observations. Empirical studies suggest this 'forward-looking' rule provides a reasonable description of recent monetary policy in several...

The natural rate of interest -- the real interest rate consistent with output equaling potential -- plays an important role in both economic forecasting and monetary policy. Much of the literature has assumed that the natural rate of interest is constant. For example, the Taylor rule includes a...