The canonical inflation specification in sticky-price rational expectations models (the new-Keynesian Phillips curve) is often criticized for failing to account for the dependence of inflation on its own lags. In response, many studies employ a “hybrid” specification in which inflation...

This study contributes to the ongoing debate over the causes of housing bubbles. The argument that excessively low interest rates were responsible for the run up in house prices over the last decade has received considerable attention in the literature. However, few papers have attempted to...

This paper documents the impact of U.S. monetary policy announcement surprises on foreign equity indexes, short- and long-term interest rates, and exchange rates in 49 countries. We use two proxies for monetary policy surprises: the surprise change to the current target federal funds rate...

This paper explores issues that arise in implementing monetary policy under conditions of sustained price stability. We discuss several issues that concern the selection of a central bank's inflation objective under such conditions: price measurement; the behavior of other key variables,...

Changes in monetary policy are typically implemented gradually, an empirical observation known as interest-rate smoothing. We propose the explanation that time-non-separable preferences may render interest-rate smoothing optimal. We find that when consumers have "catching-up-with-the-Joneses"...

This paper extends the sticky-price models of Fuhrer and Moore (1995a,b) to include explicit, optimization-based consumption and investment decisions. The goal is to use the resulting model for monetary policy analysis; consequently, strong emphasis is placed on empirical validation of the...

As has been widely observed, the volatility of GDP has declined since the mid-1980s compared with prior years. One leading explanation for this decline is that monetary policy improved significantly in the later period. We utilize a cross-section of 2-digit manufacturing and trade industries to...

This article assesses the importance of the zero lower bound on nominal interest rates for the conduct of monetary policy. The article employs a small, forward-looking model developed by Fuhrer and Moore. The model is simulated under several policy rules that involve either high- or...

A number of recent papers have explored monetary policy options, including inflation targeting and inflation forecast targeting (notably Svensson (1999a, 1999b, 2000)) and price level targeting (Wolman 2000, Batini and Yates 1999, Blinder 1999). Most papers explore "optimal" monetary policy in...

remarks at an economics luncheon co-sponsored by the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco (Seattle Branch) and the University of Washington, Seattle, Washington