After two decades of successfully restoring price stability in much of the world economy, central banks begin the next millennium facing a new set of challenges. One key task is how to conduct monetary policy in an era of price stability. Clearly, policymakers would like inflation to remain...

a speech at the Center for Economic Policy Studies and on the occasion of the Seventy-Fifth Anniversary of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey

remarks at the Economic Club of New York, New York, New York, April 11, 2011

Despite the low inflation of recent years, some observers have wondered whether rapid gains in U.S. asset prices foreshadow rising inflationary pressures. Would U.S. monetary policy be improved if Federal Reserve policymakers reacted systematically to changes in the prices of widely held assets...

Many analysts have advocated using commodity prices as a guide for monetary policy. A necessary condition is that changes in commodity prices are good predictors of future aggregate price changes. This paper examines that proposition. It shows that while commodity prices can help produce more...

The Neal Resolution, now in Congress, would make price stability the dominant goal of monetary policy. The first of these two articles holds that policymakers’ discretion over the price level increases political conflict. Further, it argues that removing this discretion would restore the...

The Neal Resolution, now in Congress, would make price stability the dominant goal of monetary policy. The first of these two articles holds that policymakers’ discretion over the price level increases political conflict. Further, it argues that removing this discretion would restore the...

remarks at the Economic Club of New York, New York, New York, April 11, 2011