We evaluate the effect of the Federal Reserve's purchase of long-term Treasuries and other long-term bonds ("QE1" in 2008-2009 and "QE2" in 2010-2011) on interest rates. Using an event-study methodology we reach two main conclusions. First, it is inappropriate to focus only on Treasury rates as...

I analyze monetary policy with interest on reserves and a large balance sheet. I show that conventional theories do not determine inflation in this regime, so I base the analysis on the fiscal theory of the price level. I find that monetary policy can peg the nominal rate, and determine expected...

The paper considers three methods for eliminating the zero lower bound on nominal interest rates and thus for restoring symmetry to domain over which the central bank can vary its policy rate. They are: (1) abolishing currency (which would also be a useful crime-fighting measure); (2) paying...

We study equilibria in a heterogeneous-agent incomplete-market economy with nominal government debt and flexible prices. Unlike in representative agent economies, steady-state equilibria exist when the government runs persistent deficits, provided that the level of deficits is not too large. In...

Central banks no longer set the short-term interest rates that they use for monetary policy purposes by manipulating the supply of banking system reserves, as in conventional economics textbooks; today this process involves little or no variation in the supply of central bank liabilities. In...

Many authors argue that asymmetric information between the Federal Reserve and the public is important to the conduct and the effects of monetary policy. This paper tests for the existence of such asymmetric information by examining Federal Reserve and commercial inflation forecasts. We...

We evaluate the implications of the ECB's negative interest rate policy (NIRP) on the yield curve. To capture various shapes of the short end of the yield curve induced by the NIRP, we introduce two policy indicators, which summarize the immediate and longer-horizon future monetary policy...

We present a signalling theory of Quantitative Easing (QE) at the zero lower bound on the short term nominal interest rate. QE is effective because it generates a credible signal of low future real interest rates in a time consistent equilibrium. We show these results in two models. One has...

This paper summarizes some recent work in which we have modeled long-term interest rate determination in an explicit demand-supply context, using multi-equation structural models and directly contrasts such models with unrestricted reduced-form models. Wholly apart from questions of...

In the presence of negative monetary-policy rates and a zero lower bound on deposit rates, banks that are more exposed to central banks’ asset-purchase programs reduce their lending to the real economy by more than their counterparts. When banks face a lower bound on customer deposit rates, an...