We provide new evidence on the response of real interest rates and inflation to monetary shocks. Our measure of monetary policy shocks is based on unexpected changes in interest rates over a 30-minute window surrounding scheduled Federal Reserve announcements. Our estimates indicate that nominal...

We characterize the optimal sequential choice of monetary policy in economies with either nominal or indexed debt. In a model where nominal debt is the only source of time inconsistency, the Markov-perfect equilibrium policy implies the progressive depletion of the outstanding stock of debt,...

This paper explores several issues concerning a possible zero lower bound (ZLB) including its theoretical rationale; the magnitude of effects of low sustained inflation on real interest rates; the validity of analyzing monetary policy in models with no monetary variables; and the dynamic...

This paper relates predictable gains from positions in fed funds futures contracts to violations of the expectations hypothesis of the term structure of interest rates. Although evidence for predictable gains from positions in short-horizon contracts is mixed, we find that gains in longer...

Woodford (2003) describes a popular class of neo-Wicksellian models in which monetary policy is characterized by an interest-rate rule, and the money market and financial institutions are typically not even modeled. Critics contend that these models are incomplete and unsuitable for...

This paper examines changes over time in the importance of the lending channel in the transmission of monetary shocks to the real economy. We first use a simple extension of the Bernanke-Blinder model to isolate the observable factors that affect the strength of the lending channel. We then show...

In recent years, central banks have increasingly turned to "forward guidance" as a central tool of monetary policy, especially as interest rates around the world have hit the zero lower bound. Standard monetary models imply that far future forward guidance is extremely powerful: promises about...

We evaluate the Friedman-Schwartz hypothesis that a more accommodative monetary policy could have greatly reduced the severity of the Great Depression. To do this, we first estimate a dynamic, general equilibrium model using data from the 1920s and 1930s. Although the model includes eight...

In this paper, we quantify the changes in the relationship between international forces and many key US macroeconomic variables over the 1984-2005 period, and analyze changes in the monetary policy transmission mechanism. We do so by estimating a Factor-Augmented VAR on a large set of US and...

A growing theoretical literature argues that aggregate price flexibility and the inflation-output tradeoff faced by central banks should rise with microeconomic price change dispersion. However, there is little empirical work testing this prediction. I fill this gap by estimating time-varying...