This paper analyzes the central bank’s optimal objective function in a small open economy model allowing for incomplete exchange rate pass-through. The results indicate that there are welfare gains from different types of monetary policy inertia. The welfare improvements of exchange rate...

The central bank's optimal reaction to foreign and domestic shocks is analyzed in an inflation targeting model allowing for incomplete exchange rate pass-through. Limited pass-through is incorporated through nominal rigidities in an aggregate supply-aggregate demand model derived from some...

We analyze the performance and robustness of some common simple rules for monetary policy in a New-Keynesian open economy model under different assumptions about the exchange rate model. Adding the exchange rate to an optimized Taylor rule gives only small improvements in terms of economic...

This paper investigates the performance of various monetary rules in an open economy with incomplete exchange rate pass-through. Implementing monetary policy through an exchange rate augmented policy rule does not improve social welfare compared to using an optimized Taylor rule, irrespective of...

I revisit the potential costs and benefits for Sweden of joining the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) of the European Union. I first show that the Swedish business cycle since the mid-1990s has been closely correlated with the Euro area economies, suggesting that common shocks have been an...

We develop a structural model of a small open economy with gradual exchange rate pass-through and endogenous inertia in inflation and output. We then estimate the model by matching the implied impulse responses with those obtained from a VAR model estimated on Swedish data. Although our model is...

This paper reports and analyzes the results from a questionnaire sent to all present and former members of the Riksbank’s Executive Board, the monetary policy committee (MPC) of the Swedish central bank. The questions cover a number of issues discussed in the growing literature on monetary...

In this paper, I use high-frequency financial market estimates to identify the monetary policy shock in a non-recursive 133 variable FAVAR. All restrictions are imposed exclusively on impact, and only on financial market variables. Using the economy's underlying factor structure as the link...

One characteristic feature of central banks today is that policy decisions are almost exclusively made by a committee rather than by a single policy maker. Another is that central banks are considerably more transparent than they used to be. Together, this has brought to the fore an important...

Policymakers often use the output gap, a noisy signal of economic activity, as a guide for setting monetary policy. Noise in the data argues for policy caution. At the same time, the zero bound on nominal interest rates constrains the central bank's ability to stimulate the economy during...