We connect two major strands of the recent monetary policy literature, i) the search for well microfounded optimising models consistent with macroeconomic data, especially persistence in inflation, and ii) the wealth of newly available microeconomic data on price changing behaviour from the...

A manifestation of the Federal Reserve Board's increased transparency has been Chairman Greenspan's method of communication. The purpose of this paper is to establish the positive aspects of his speeches, testimonies and FOMC statements on financial market variables. This analysis is undertaken...

Papers estimating the reaction function of the Bundesbank generally find that ist monetary policy from the 1970s to 1998 can well be captured by a standard Taylor rule according to which the central bank responds to the output gap and to deviations of inflation from target, but not to monetary...

In this paper we consider the quadratic optimal control problem with regime shifts and forward-looking agents. This extends the results of Zampolli (2003) who considered models without forward-looking expectations. Two algorithms are presented: The first algorithm computes the solution of a...

We examine the performance and robustness properties of monetary policy rules in an estimated macroeconomic model in which the economy undergoes structural change and where private agents and the central bank possess imperfect knowledge about the true structure of the economy. Private agents...

Monetary policy conducted in real time has to take into account the preliminary nature of recent national accounts data. Not only recent data, but also figures dating many years back are potentially subject to revisions. This means that there is a danger that an important part of the central...

We evaluate the case for perfect price (inflation) stabilization in a New Keynesian (NNS) model that includes capital accumulation, a variety of shocks, a monetary and an imperfect competition distortion. In such a model, price rigidity may provide the monetary authorities with an opportunity to...

The natural rate of interest -- the real interest rate consistent with output equaling potential -- plays an important role in both economic forecasting and monetary policy. Much of the literature has assumed that the natural rate of interest is constant. For example, the Taylor rule includes a...