This paper presents evidence that throughout the 1973-85 period the Federal Reserve systematically used certain types of discount rate announcements to signal changes in its policy instrument, the Federal funds rate. Market participants understood the signals contained in discount rate...

Currently there is a growing literature exploring the features of optimal monetary policy in New Keynesian models under both commitment and discretion. This literature usually solves for the optimal allocations that are consistent with a rational expectations market equiibrium, but it does not...

For industrial countries in the post-war period, the price level and the money stock have displayed little tendency to revert to given growth paths. Indeed, this stylized fact is frequently referred to by monetarist critics of central banks, who point out that periods of temporarily high or low...