We develop a model in which innovations in an economy's growth potential are an important driving force of the business cycle. The frame- work shares the emphasis of the recent “new shock” literature on revisions of beliefs about the future as a source of fluctuations, but differs by tieing...

The 1950s are often pointed to as a decade in which the Federal Reserve operated a particularly successful monetary policy. The present paper examines the evolution of Federal Reserve monetary policy from the mid-1930s through the 1950s in an effort to understand better the apparent success of...

Mortgage loans are a striking example of a persistent nominal rigidity. As a result, under incomplete markets, monetary policy affects decisions through the cost of new mortgage borrowing and the value of payments on outstanding debt. Observed debt levels and payment to income ratios suggest the...

I develop a structural general equilibrium model and estimate it for New Zealand using Bayesian techniques. The estimated model considers a monetary policy regime where the central bank targets overall inflation but is also concerned about output, exchange rate movements, and interest rate...