High-frequency changes in interest rates around FOMC announcements are a standard method of measuring monetary policy shocks. However, some recent studies have documented puzzling effects of these shocks on private-sector forecasts of GDP, unemployment, or inflation that are opposite in sign to...

Central banks unexpectedly tightening policy rates often observe the exchange value of their currency depreciate, rather than appreciate as predicted by standard models. We document this for Fed and ECB policy days using eventstudies and ask whether an information effect, where the public...

The European Central Bank (ECB) took many measures to combat the eurozone’s rolling financial crisis. For providing desperately scarce dollars to eurozone banks, the ECB relied on the U.S. Federal Reserve. Using a novel econometric framework, we identify financial markets’ response to the...

How should central banks optimally aggregate sectoral inflation rates in the presence of imperfect labor mobility across sectors? We study this issue in a two-sector New-Keynesian model and show that a lower degree of sectoral labor mobility, ceteris paribus, increases the optimal weight on...

We study monetary policy in a New Keynesian model with a variable credit spread and scope for central bank asset purchases to matter. A novel financial and labor market interaction generates an endogenous cost-push channel in the Phillips curve and a credit wedge in the IS curve. The “divine...

This paper studies how household inequality shapes the effects of the zero lower bound (ZLB) on nominal interest rates on aggregate dynamics. To do so, we consider a heterogeneous agent New Keynesian (HANK) model with an occasionally binding ZLB and solve for its fully nonlinear stochastic...

We analyse how movements in the components of sovereign bond yields in the United States affect long-term rates in 10 advanced and 21 emerging economies. The paper documents significant global spillovers from both the expectations and term premia components of long-term rates in the United...

This paper describes the monetary policy response of countries during the inter-war period. How did central banks react to the Great Depression? How did countries balance the externals demands of the gold standard with domestic policy pressures? What was the optimal level of international policy...

We examine the role of money in the policies of the ECB, using introductory statements of the ECB President at the monthly press conferences during 1999-2004. Over time, the relative amount of words devoted to the monetary analysis has decreased. Our analysis of indicators of the monetary policy...