Optimal monetary policy is studied in a model with no contractual restrictions or physical costs of changing prices. Nevertheless, the price level is sticky in a range of markup indeterminacy, and inflation occurs only when employment presses against capacity. Under full information, the...

The paper proposes three options for overcoming the zero bound on interest rate policy: a carry tax on money, open market operations in long bonds, and monetary transfers. A variable carry tax on electronic bank reserves could enable a central bank to target negative nominal interest rates. A...

The paper assesses the role of a Reserve Bank in the Federal Reserve System. It compares the Eurosystem with the Fed System, and offers suggestions for the Eurosystem based on the Fed's experience. A regional presence facilitates surveillance of the economy and helps a central bank to...

Central bank or International Monetary Fund lending should be regarded as a line of credit, analogous to private line-of-credit products. Contractual provisions in private line-of-credit arrangements are designed to control managerial moral hazard and provide a means for profit-maximizing...

A discretionary policymaker responds to the state of the economy each period. Private agents' current behavior determines the future state based on expectations of future policy. Discretionary policy thus can lead to dynamic complementarity between private agents and a policymaker, which in turn...

The paper explores the relationship between financial stability, deflation, and monetary policy. A discussion of narrow liquidity, broad liquidity, market liquidity, and financial distress provides the foundation for the analysis. There are two preliminary conclusions. Equity prices are a...

Reasoning within the New Neoclassical Synthesis (NNS) we previously recommended that price stability should be the primary objective of monetary policy. We called this a neutral policy because it keeps output at its potential, defined as the outcome of an imperfectly competitive real business...

In a canonical staggered pricing model, monetary discretion leads to multiple private sector equilibria. The basis for multiplicity is a form of policy complementarity. Specifically, prices set in the current period embed expectations about future policy, and actual future policy responds to...

Optimal monetary policy maximizes welfare, given frictions in the economic environment. Constructing a model with two sets of frictions - the Keynesian friction of costly price adjustment by imperfectly competitive firms and the Monetarist friction of costly exchange of wealth for goods - we...

Macroeconomics is moving toward a New Neoclassical Synthesis, which like the synthesis of the 1960s melds Classical with Keynesian ideas. This paper describes the key features of the new synthesis and its implications for the role of monetary policy. We find that the New Neoclassical Synthesis...