Central banks regularly monitor select financial and macroeconomic variables in order to obtain early indication of the impact of monetary policies. This practice is discussed on the Federal Reserve Bank of New York website, for example, where one particular set of macroeconomic indicators is...

We analyze empirical links between the perceived tail-risk of inflation, the policy rate, longer-term interest rates, and equity prices in the U.S. Their simultaneous changes enable us to distinguish between a systematic and "exogenous" response to monetary-policy news. And, those tail...

Monetary policy in CEE is an important determinant in the wage bargaining process, because trade unions have to predict inflation as one component of future real wages. This paper scrutinizes whether countries in CEE that officially announce an inflation target are tempted to act...

We estimate monetary policy rules in Switzerland for 1981-1997. In addition to an inflation gap, we find that forward-looking rules with output and exchange rate gaps nicely fit monetary aggregates as well as the call rate. We split the sample in 1990 when the Swiss National Bank replaced annual...

This paper contributes to the policy evaluation literature by developing new strategies to study alternative policy rules. We compare optimal rules to simple rules within canonical monetary policy models. In our context, an optimal rule represents the solution to an intertemporal optimization...

In this chapter we discuss model selection and predictive accuracy tests in the context of parameter and model uncertainty under recursive and rolling estimation schemes. We begin by summarizing some recent theoretical findings, with particular emphasis on the construction of valid bootstrap...

In recent years China has faced an increasing trilemmahow to pursue an independent domestic monetary policy and limit exchange rate flexibility, while at the same time facing large and growing international capital flows. This paper analyzes the impact of the trilemma on China's monetary policy...

What happens if the government's willingness to stabilize a large stock of debt is waning, while the central bank is adamant about preventing a rise in inflation? The large fiscal imbalance brings about inflationary pressures, triggering a monetary tightening, further debt accumulation, and...

This paper reconsiders the role of monetary policy in Sweden's strong recovery from the Great Depression. The Riksbank in the 1930s is sometimes seen as an example of a central bank that was relatively innovative in terms of the conduct of monetary policy. To consider this analytically, we...

A central tenet of the so-called new consensus view in macroeconomics is that there is no long-run trade-off between inflation and unemployment. The main policy implication of this principle is that all monetary policy can aim for is (modest) short-run output stabilization and long-run price...