We develop and estimate a structural model of inflation that allows for a fraction of firms that use a backward looking rule to set prices. The model nests the purely forward looking New Keynesian Phillips curve as a particular case. We use measures of arginal cost as the relevant determinant of...

This paper reviews the recent literature on monetary policy rules. We exploit the monetary policy design problem within a simple baseline theoretical framework. We then consider the implications of adding various real world complications. Among other things, we show that the optimal policy...

We develop a model in which innovations in an economy's growth potential are an important driving force of the business cycle. The framework 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 these...

Galí and Gertler (1999) developed a hybrid variant of the New Keynesian Phillips curve that relates inflation to real marginal cost, expected future inflation and lagged inflation. GMM estimates of the model suggest that forward looking behavior is dominant: The coefficient on expected future...

We study the international monetary policy design problem within an optimizing two-country sticky price model, where each country faces a short run tradeoff between output and inflation. The model is sufficiently tractable to solve analytically. We find that in the Nash equilibrium, the policy...

In this paper we present a simple, theory-based measure of the variations in aggregate economic efficiency associated with business fluctuations. We decompose this indicator, which we refer to as 'the gap', into two constituent parts: a price markup and a wage markup, and show that the latter...

This paper develops a new open economy macro model of optimal monetary for a small open economy. Our main result is that in this model, the optimal policy problem for the small open economy is isomorphic to the closed economy case studied in Clarida, Gali, Gertler (1999). In particular, the...

We provide evidence on the fit of the New Phillips Curve (NPQ for the Euro area over the period 1970-1998, and use it as a tool to compare the characteristics of European inflation dynamics with those observed in the U.S. We also analyze the factors underlying inflation inertia by examining the...

We attempt to explain the overreaction of asset prices to movements in short-term interest rates, dividends, and asset supplies. The key element of our explanation is a margin constraint that traders face which limits their leverage to a fraction of the value of their assets. Traders may lever...

We estimate a forward-looking monetary policy reaction function for the postwar US economy, pre- and post-October 1979. Our results point to substantial differences in the estimated rule across periods. In particular, interest rate policy in the Volcker-Greenspan period appears to have been much...