The pickup in the U.S. inflation rate to its highest rates in forty years has led to renewed attention being given to the Great Inflation of the 1970s. This paper asks with regard to the Great Inflation: “How did it happen?” The answer offered is the fact that, in both the United Kingdom and...

We study optimal monetary and fiscal policy in a New Keynesian model where occasional declines in agents' confidence give rise to persistent liquidity trap episodes. There is no straightforward recipe for enhancing welfare in this economy. Raising the inflation target or appointing an...

Does banks' exposure to interest rate risk change when interest rates are very low or even negative? Using a high-frequency event study methodology and intraday data, we find that the effect of surprise interest rate cuts announced by the ECB on European bank equity values - an effect that is...

This note focuses on the longer-run implications of alternative monetary policy strategies for the evolution of the price level. The analysis compares the properties of optimal policy in regimes ranging from pure inflation targeting (IT), to a form of weighted-average inflation targeting (WAIT),...

The topic of the Federal Reserve’s (the Fed’s) implementation of monetary policy has a significant presence in economics textbooks as well as standards and guidelines for economics instruction. This presence likely reflects the fact that it is the implementation framework that helps ensure...

This paper examines potential interactions between financial stability and the monetary policy strategies and tools considered in the Federal Reserve’s review of monetary policy strategy, tools, and communication practices. Achieving the Federal Reserve’s goals of full employment and price...

This paper estimates the path of inflation persistence in the United States over the last 50 years and draws implications about the evolution of the Federal Reserve's monetary-policy preferences. Standard models of central-bank optimization predict persistent inflation outcomes. Time variation...

Asset purchases have become an important monetary policy tool of the Federal Reserve in recent years. To date, most studies of the Federal Reserve's asset purchases have tried to measure the interest rate effects of the policies. Several papers provide evidence that these programs do have...

This paper analyzes Milton Friedman's (1968) article "The Role of Monetary Policy," via a discussion of seven fallacies concerning the article. These fallacies are: (1) "The Role of Monetary Policy" was Friedman’s first public statement of the natural rate hypothesis. (2) The...

In recent years, the Federal Reserve has made substantial changes to its framework for monetary policymaking by providing greater clarity regarding its objectives, its intentions regarding the use of monetary policy--including nontraditional policy tools such as forward guidance and asset...