Many estimated macroeconomic models assume interest rate smoothing in the monetary policy equation. In practice, monetary policymakers adjust a target level for the federal funds rate by discrete increments. One often-neglected consequence of using a quarterly average of the daily federal funds...

Empirical models of the federal funds rate almost uniformly use the quarterly or monthly average of the daily rates. One empirical question about the federal funds rate concerns the extent to which monetary policymakers smooth this interest rate. Under the hypothesis of rate smoothing,...