Central bank independence (CBI) is a very important precondition for price stability. However, the empirical evidence for a correlation between both is relatively weak. In this paper, this weakness is countered with a) an extended measure of monetary commitment, which includes well-known...

How does competition affect information acquisition of firms and thus the response of inflation and output to monetary policy shocks? This paper addresses these questions in a new dynamic general equilibrium model with both dynamic rational inattention and oligopolistic competition. In the...

We study how different forms of communication influence the inflation expectations of individuals in a randomized controlled trial. We first solicit individuals’ inflation expectations in the Nielsen Homescan panel and then provide eight different forms of information regarding inflation....

Inflation targeting is implemented in different ways – most often by adopting point targets, by having tolerance bands around a point target, or by specifying target ranges. Using data for 20 economies, this paper tests whether the various target types affect the anchoring of inflation...

We study the effects of forward-looking communication in an environment of rising inflation rates on German consumers’ inflation expectations using a randomized control trial. We show that information about rising inflation increases short- and long-term inflation expectations. This initial...

This paper studies the causal effect of inflation literacy on inflation expectations and trust in the central bank using a randomized control trial (RCT) on a representative sample of the German population. In an experiment with two steps, we first test the effect of non-numerical information...

Using the variation in national television news of four major member states in the Eurozone, we find causal effects of coverage of high-frequency identified monetary policy announcements on households’ inflation expectations in an event study and a generalized Difference-in-Differences...

Channel systems for conducting monetary policy are becoming increasingly popular. Despite their popularity, the consequences of implementing policy with a channel system are not well understood. We develop a general equilibrium framework of a channel system and investigate the optimal policy. A...

When agents are liquidity constrained, two options exist - sell assets or borrow. We compare the allocations arising in two economies: in one, agents can sell government (outside) bonds and in the other they can borrow by issuing (inside) bonds. All transactions are voluntary, implying no...

The Friedman rule states that steady-state welfare is maximized when there is deflation at the real rate of interest. Recent work by Khan et al (2003) uses a richer model but still finds deflation optimal. In an otherwise standard new Keynesian model we show that, if households have hyperbolic...