This paper characterizes the properties of various interest-rate rules in a basic forward-looking model. We compare simple Taylor rules and rules that respond to price-level fluctuations (called Wicksellian rules). We argue that by introducing an appropriate amount of history dependence in...

During the turbulent 1970s and 1980s the Bundesbank established an outstanding reputation in the world of central banking. Germany achieved a high degree of domestic stability and provided safe haven for investors in times of turmoil in the international financial system. Eventually the...

The paper examines the robustness of Interest Rate Rules, IRRs, in the context of an imperfectly credible stabilization program, closely following the format of much of the literature in open-economy models, e.g., Calvo and Végh (1993 and 1999). A basic result is that IRRs, like Exchange Rate...

The paper generalizes the Taylor principle---the proposition that central banks can stabilize the macroeconomy by raising their interest rate instrument more than one-for-one in response to higher inflation---to an environment in which reaction coefficients in the monetary policy rule evolve...

The existing literature on the stabilizing properties of interest-rate feedback rules has stressed the perils of linking interest rates to forecasts of future inflation. Such rules have been found to give rise to aggregate fluctuations due to self-fulfilling expectations. In response to this...

"Leaning against the wind" (LAW), that is, tighter monetary policy for financial-stability purposes, has costs in terms of a weaker economy with higher unemployment and lower inflation and possible benefits from a lower probability or magnitude of a (financial) crisis. A first obvious cost is a...

This paper reconsiders a result obtained by Sargent and Wallace, namely, that price level indeterminacy obtains in their well-known model if the monetary authorities adopt a policy feedback rule for the interest rate rather than the money stock. Since the Federal Reserve seems often to have used...

The "reversal interest rate" is the rate at which accommodative monetary policy reverses its intended effect and becomes contractionary for lending. It occurs when banks' asset revaluation from duration mismatch is more than offset by decreases in net interest income on new business, lowering...

Central banks no longer set the short-term interest rates that they use for monetary policy purposes by manipulating the supply of banking system reserves, as in conventional economics textbooks; today this process involves little or no variation in the supply of central bank liabilities. In...

Using an optimizing model we derive the optimal monetary and exchange rate policy for a small stochastic open economy with imperfect competition and short run price rigidity. The optimal monetary policy has an exact closed-form solution and is obtained using the utility function of the...