Despite a number of helpful changes, including the adoption of an inflation target, the Fed’s monetary policy strategy proved insufficiently resilient in recent years. While the Fed eased policy appropriately during the pandemic, it fell behind the curve during the post-pandemic recovery....

Monetary policy choices going forward are explicitly tied to labor market performance. Hence, the sharp decline in the labor force participation rate following the 2007-09 recession has become a salient topic.

This paper presents empirical evidence on the efficacy of forecast averaging using the ALFRED (ArchivaL Federal Reserve Economic Data) real-time database. We consider averages over a variety of bivariate vector autoregressive models. These models are distinguished from one another based on at...

Analyzing and forecasting the performance and direction of a large, complex economy like that of the United States is a difficult task. The process involves parsing a great deal of data, understanding key economic relationships, and assessing which events or factors might cause monetary or...

The author investigates the welfare cost of business cycles in an economy where households have heterogeneous trading technologies. In an economy with aggregate risk, the different portfolio choices induced by heterogeneous trading technologies lead to a larger consumption inequality in...

This article is based on the author’s Homer Jones Memorial Lecture delivered at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, April 2, 2014.

The essence of quantitative easing (QE) is reducing the cost of private borrowing through large-scale purchases of privately issued debt instead of public debt (Bernanke, 2009). Regardless of how effective this highly unconventional monetary policy may be in reviving private investment and the...

This article describes the joint evolution of Federal Reserve policy and the study of the impact of monetary policy surprises on high-frequency asset prices. Since the 1970s, the Federal Open Market Committee has clarified its objectives and modified its procedures to become more transparent and...

This article is a reflection on monetary policy in the United States during Ben Bernanke’s two terms as Chairman of the Federal Open Market Committee, from 2006 to 2014. Inflation targeting, policy during the financial crisis, and post-crisis monetary policy (forward guidance and quantitative...