We investigate the importance of trend inflation and the real-activity gap for explaining observed inflation variation in G7 countries since 1960. Our results are based on a bivariate unobserved-components model of inflation and unemployment in which inflation is decomposed into a stochastic...

Since January 1994, the Federal Reserve Board has permitted depository institutions in the United States to implement so-called retail sweep programs. The essence of these programs is computer software that dynamically reclassifies customer deposits between transaction accounts, which are...

This paper provides a consistent, monthly measure of the amount of the U.S. adjusted monetary base that is domestically held, and of the amount held abroad. Most macroeconomic models that address the role of outside money as a determinant of the economy's aggregate price level are closed economy...

The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis' adjusted monetary base combines in a single index Federal Reserve actions that affect the supply base money -- open market operations, discount window lending and unsterilized foreign exchange market intervention -- with actions that affect depository...

This paper presents a new method to estimate the amount of U.S. currency held abroad. The method exploits the fact the Federal Reserve System is the major processor of currency for depository institutions. The method exploits differentials across denominations in the ratios of shipments to...

The Shadow Open Market Committee was formed in 1973 in response to rising inflation and the apparent unwillingness of U.S. policymakers to implement policies necessary to maintain price stability. This paper describes how the Committee's policy views differed from those of most Federal Reserve...

Any research or policy analysis exercise in economics must be consistent with the time-series properties of observed macroeconomic data. This paper discusses in detail the specification of a six-variable vector error-correction forecasting model. We test for cointegration among those variables:...

We measure the relative contribution of the deviation of real activity from its equilibrium (the gap), “supply shock” variables, and long-horizon inflation forecasts for explaining the U.S. inflation rate in the post-war period. For alternative specifications for the inflation driving...

This analysis examines the long-run demand for the adjusted monetary base in the United States, 1919-1999. When the "price"of the base is measured by the inverse of the yield on long-term, high-quality corporate bonds and an appropriate functional form is selected, the quantity of base money...

In this paper, we examine the use of Box-Tiao*s (1977) canonical correlation method as an alternative to likelihood-based inferences for vector error-correction models. It is now well-known that testing of cointegration ranks based on Johansen*s (1995) ML-based method suffers from severe small...