We estimate the effect of shifts in monetary policy using the term structure of interest rates. In our no-arbitrage model, the short rate follows a version of the Taylor (1993) rule where the coefficients on the output gap and inflation vary over time. The monetary policy loading on the output...

Cyclical fluctuations in nominal variables--aggregate price levels and nominal interest rates--are documented to be substantially more synchronized across countries than cyclical fluctuations in real output. A transparent mechanism that can account for this striking feature of the nominal...

With positive trend inflation, the Taylor principle is not enough to guarantee a determinate equilibrium. We provide new theoretical results on restoring determinacy in New Keynesian models with positive trend inflation and combine these with new empirical findings on the Federal Reserve's...

Cochrane (2007) has strongly questioned the basic economic logic of current mainstream monetary policy analysis, arguing that the standard notion --that "determinacy" of a rational expectations (RE) equilibrium suffices to imply that stable inflation behavior will be generated -- is incorrect....

The main arguments in favor and against nominal and indexed debt are the incentive to default through inflation versus hedging against unforeseen shocks. We model and calibrate these arguments to assess their quantitative importance. We use a dynamic equilibrium model with tax distortion,...

The Shadow Open Market Committee was formed in 1973 in response to rising inflation and the apparent unwillingness of U.S. policymakers to implement policies necessary to maintain price stability. This paper describes how the Committee's policy views differed from those of most Federal Reserve...

Different theories of price stickiness have distinct implications on the number of modes in the distribution of price changes. We formally test for the number of modes in the price change distribution of 36 supermarkets, spanning 22 countries and 5 continents. We present results for three...

In a market-clearing economy, declines in demand from one sector do not cause large declines in aggregatge output because other sectors expand. The key price mediating the response is the interest rate. A decline in the rate stimulates all categories of spending. But in a low-inflation economy,...

In the United States, the rate of price inflation falls in recessions. Turning this observation into a useful inflation forecasting equation is difficult because of multiple sources of time variation in the inflation process, including changes in Fed policy and credibility. We propose a tightly...

Historical data and model simulations support the following conclusion. Inflation is low during stock market booms, so that an interest rate rule that is too narrowly focused on inflation destabilizes asset markets and the broader economy. Adjustments to the interest rate rule can remove this...