Non-coordinated monetary policy is analysed in a stochastic two-country general equilibrium model. Non-coordinated equilibria are compared in two cases: one where policy is set in terms of state-contingent money supply rules and one where policy is set in terms of state-contingent nominal...

This paper examines the methods used by the Bank of Japan for the estimation of the output gap. Attention is paid to the real-time estimation problem. After reviewing the evolution of output gap estimation at the Bank, I discuss advantages and disadvantages of the various output gap measures....

In the study, the relevance of several optimum-currency-area (OCA) criteria is formally worked out in a welfare approach. The optimum monetary-policy rules of the supranational central bank are derived within the Barro-Gordon framework, and consideration is given to how the welfare of the member...

Papers estimating the reaction function of the Bundesbank generally find that its monetary policy from the 1970s to 1998 can well be captured by a standard Taylor rule according to which the central bank responds to the output gap and to deviations of inflation from target, but not to monetary...

This paper studies the importance of money for inflation in the euro area. An inflation equation is derived from a small model that combines the supply and demand for money with a Phillips curve and the assumption that inflation expectations develop adaptively. The model's solution attributes an...

The first part of this paper outlines the concept of democratic accountability of central banks, and compares the legal accountability of the ECB with some other central banks (Bank of Canada, Bank of Japan, Bank of England and the Federal Reserve System). In the second part, we present a theory...

According to most academics and policymakers, transparency in monetary policymaking is desirable. I examine this proposition in a small theoretical model emphasizing forwardlooking private sector behavior. Transparency makes it easier for price setters to infer the central bank's future policy...

Conventional wisdom says that commitment eliminates the inflationary bias of monetary policy. However, this paper shows that the inflation bias can persist even when the central bank commits. A simple model is presented in which the central bank precommits by setting the policy instrument, and...

This paper analyses the implications of cost-push shocks for the optimal choice of monetary policy target in an two-country sticky-price model. In addition to cost-push shocks, each country is subject to labour-supply and money-demand shocks. It is shown that the fully optimal coordinated policy...

We examine optimal and other monetary policies in a linear-quadratic setup with a relatively general form of model uncertainty, so-called Markov jump-linear-quadratic systems extended to include forward-looking variables. The form of model uncertainty our framework encompasses includes : simple...