Aggregate shocks that move output and inflation in opposite directions create a tradeoff between output and inflation variability, forcing central bankers to make a choice. Differences in the degree of accommodation of shocks lead to disparate variability outcomes, revealing national central...

Over the last two decades, communication has become an increasingly important aspect of monetary policy. These real-world developments have spawned a huge new scholarly literature on central bank communication -- mostly empirical, and almost all of it written in this decade. We survey this...

The paper presents a framework for analyzing the degree of financial transmission between money, bond and equity markets and exchange rates within and between the United States and the euro area. We find that asset prices react strongest to other domestic asset price shocks, and that there are...

We ask whether recent changes in monetary policy due to the financial crisis will be temporary or permanent. We present evidence from two surveys--one of central bank governors, the other of academic specialists. We find that central banks in crisis countries are more likely to have resorted to...

Using the 2007-09 financial crisis as a laboratory, we analyze the transmission of crises to country-industry equity portfolios in 55 countries. We use a factor model to predict crisis returns, defining unexplained increases in factor loadings and residual correlations as indicative of...

Central banks are increasingly reaching out to the general public to motivate and explain their monetary policy actions. One major aim of this outreach is to guide inflation expectations; another is to ensure accountability and create trust. This article surveys a rapidly-growing literature on...