There is a broad consensus in the literature that costs of information processing and acquisition may generate costly disagreements in expectations among economic agents, and that central banks may play a central role in reducing such dispersion in expectations. This paper analyses empirically...

We develop an estimated model of the US economy in which agents form expectations by continually updating their beliefs regarding the behaviour of the economy and monetary policy. We explore the effects of policy-makers' misperceptions of the natural rate of unemployment during the late 1960s...

This Paper explores the quantitative implications of an approach to monetary policy that gained prominence in the United States during the 1990s. Proponents of this approach recommend that, when inflation is moderate but still above the long-run objective, the central bank should not move...

Monetary policy analysts often rely on rules-of-thumb, such as the Taylor rule, to describe historical monetary policy decisions and to compare current policy to historical norms. Analysis along these lines also permits evaluation of episodes where policy may have deviated from a simple rule and...

We study the convergence of European bond markets and the anchoring of inflation expectations in euro area countries using high-frequency bond yield data for France, Germany, Italy and Spain. We find that Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) has led to substantial convergence in euro area sovereign...

How and why do politicians’ preferences about monetary policy differ from the interest rates set by independent central banks? Looking at the European Central Bank, the paper shows that politicians, on average, favor significantly lower interest rates. Three factors explain the different...

Just like private companies depend crucially on their ability to reach customers, policymakers must communicate with private agents to be successful--and much of this communication is channeled through the media. This is especially true for central banks because the effectiveness of monetary...

The complexity resulting from intertwined uncertainties regarding model misspecification and mismeasurement of the state of the economy defines the monetary policy landscape. Using the euro area as laboratory this paper explores the design of robust policy guides aiming to maintain stability in...