We determine optimal discretionary monetary policy in a New Keynesian model when nominal interest rates are bounded below by zero. Nominal interest rates should be lowered faster in response to adverse shocks than in the case without bound. Such ‘pre-emptive easing’ is optimal because...

Inflation-targeting central banks have only imperfect knowledge about the effect of policy decisions on inflation. An important source of uncertainty is the relationship between inflation and unemployment. This Paper studies the optimal monetary policy in the presence of uncertainty about the...

Rational expectations are often used as a strong argument against policy activism, as they may undermine or neutralize the policymaker’s actions. Although this sometimes happens, rational expectations do not always imply policy invariance or ineffectiveness. In fact, in certain circumstances...

Robust control allows policymakers to formulate policies that guard against model misspecification. The principal tools used to solve robust control problems are state-space methods (see Hansen and Sargent, 2006, and Giordani and Söderlind, 2004). In this paper we show that the structural-form...

This paper considers a general class of nonlinear rational-expectations models in which policymakers seek to maximize an objective function that may be household expected utility. We show how to derive a target criterion that is: (i) consistent with the model's structural equations, (ii) strong...

This paper shows that absent a commitment technology, central banks can nevertheless achieve the (timeless-)optimal commitment equilibrium if they are delegated with an objective function that is different from the societal one. In a prototypical forward-looking New Keynesian model, I develop a...

The paper discusses several issues related to how monetary policy should be conducted in an era of price stability. Low inflation (with base drift in the price level) and price-level stability (without such base drift) are compared, and a suitable loss function (corresponding to flexible...

The Paper provides a formalization of the monetary economics folk proposition that government fiat money is an asset of the holder (the private sector) but not a liability of the issuer (the state). Money is 'net wealth' in the limited sense that, after consolidation of the intertemporal budget...

The paper examines the transmission mechanism of monetary policy in an open economy with and without a binding zero bound on nominal interest rates. In particular, a foolproof way of escaping from a liquidity trap is suggested, consisting of a price-level target path, a devaluation of the...

This paper provides a framework to understand debt deleveraging in a group of financially integrated countries. During an episode of international deleveraging, world consumption demand is depressed and the world interest rate is low, reflecting a high propensity to save. If exchange rates are...