This article is based on the author’s Homer Jones Memorial Lecture delivered at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, April 2, 2014.

Several commentators have been concerned about the possibility that the euro area may be experiencing disinflation with the risk of deflation. However, the euro area is not the only economy navigating the risky waters of low inflation. Several other advanced economies have recently experienced...

The Federal Reserve devotes significant resources to forecasting key economic variables such as real gross domestic product growth, employment, and inflation. The outlook for these variables also matters a great deal to businesses and financial market participants. The authors present a...

This article describes the joint evolution of Federal Reserve policy and the study of the impact of monetary policy surprises on high-frequency asset prices. Since the 1970s, the Federal Open Market Committee has clarified its objectives and modified its procedures to become more transparent and...

By providing guidance about future economic developments, central banks can affect private sector expectations and decisions. This can improve welfare by reducing private sector forecast errors, but it can also magnify the impact of noise in central bank forecasts. I employ a model of...

The Federal Open Market Committee has recently attempted to stimulate economic growth using unconventional methods. Prominent among these is quantitative easing (QE)—the purchase of a large quantity of longer-term debt on the assumption that it will reduce long-term yields through the...