This paper focuses on simple rules for monetary policy which central banks have used in various ways to guide their interest rate decisions. Such rules, which can be evaluated using simulation and optimization techniques, were first derived from research on empirical monetary models with...

At the center of the financial market crisis of 2007-2008 was a highly unusual jump in spreads between the overnight inter-bank lending rate and term London inter-bank offer rates (Libor). Because many private loans are linked to Libor rates, the sharp increase in these spreads raised the cost...

The paper examines international issues that arise in the design and evaluation of macroeconomic policy rules. It begins with a theoretical investigation of the effects of fiscal and monetary policy in a two-country rational expectations model with staggered wage and price setting and with...

This paper compares macroeconomic performance in the United States from 1891 through 1914 with the period after the Second World War by estimating reduced form autoregressions for prices, wages and output, by looking at their moving average representations, and by giving them simple structural...

This paper considers the problem of calculating optimal policy rules to stabilize fluctuations in investment in an economy where firms' investment behavior can be described by a dynamic optimization model. In the optimization model, the dynamics of investment are generated by heterogeneous...

This paper is a review of rational expectations models used in macroeconomic research. The purpose is to examine in some detail the differences between the models, the advantages and disadvantages of alternative models the empirical support for the models and their policy implications. The main...

This paper reviews and contrasts different views about the role of expectations in policy research and practice. Recently, two widely different views seem to have dominated the analysis of policy questions.One view, which is referred to as the "new classical macroeconomic"view, is that...

This paper examines the role of union wage contracts in the persistence of inflation, and the implication of these contracts for the problem of disinflation in the United States. A quantitative model of overlapping con- tracts explicitly oriented toward the major union sector is developed. The...

This paper is an empirical investigation of the role of government actions and interventions in the financial crisis that flared up in August 2007. It integrates and summarizes several ongoing empirical research projects with the aim of learning from past policy. The evidence is presented in a...

This paper shows that the theory of monetary policy rules is able to explain, predict, and help understand a variety of phenomenon in macroeconomics and finance, including the Great Moderation, the correlation between exchange rates and interest rates, and the shift in the response of the term...