We construct a no-arbitrage term structure model with jumps in the entire state vector at deterministic times but of random magnitudes. Jump risk premia are allowed for. We show that the model implies a closed-form representation of yields as a time-inhomogenous affine function of the state...

This paper shows that the theory of monetary policy rules is able to explain, predict, and help understand a variety of phenomenon in macroeconomics and finance, including the Great Moderation, the correlation between exchange rates and interest rates, and the shift in the response of the term...

Prevalent thinking about liquidity traps suggests that the perfect substitutability of money and bonds at a zero short-term nominal interest rate renders open-market operations ineffective for achieving macroeconomic stabilization goals. In an earlier paper, we showed that this reasoning does...

Prevalent thinking about liquidity traps suggests that the perfect substitutability of money and bonds at a zero short-term nominal interest rate renders open-market operations ineffective for achieving macroeconomic stabilization goals. We show that even were this the case, there remains a...

A standard statistical perspective on the U.S. Great Inflation is that it involves an increase in the stochastic trend rate of inflation, defined as the long-term forecast of inflation at each point in time. That perspective receives support from two sources: the behavior of long-term interest...

Identification problems arise naturally in forward-looking models when agents observe more than economists. We illustrate the problem in several New Keynesian and macro-finance models in which the Taylor rule includes a shock unseen by economists. We show that identification of the rule's...

Considerable debate rages about whether Federal Reserve policy was too lax in the early part of the 2000s, thereby fueling the home-price bubble that was the proximate cause of the global financial crisis. We present evidence that the view that modest alterations to monetary policy have vast...

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...

In this research, we provide new empirical evidence on the importance of time-varying uncertainty for the exchange rate and the excess return in currency markets. Following an increase in monetary policy uncertainty, the dollar exchange rate appreciates in the medium run, while an increase in...

This paper compares the effects of conventional monetary policy on real borrowing costs with those of the unconventional measures employed after the target federal funds rate hit the zero lower bound (ZLB). For the ZLB period, we identify two policy surprises: changes in the 2-year Treasury...