Recent monetary policy experience suggests a simple test of models of monetary non-neutrality. Suppose the central bank pegs the nominal interest rate below steady state for a reasonably short period of time. Familiar intuition suggests that this should be inflationary. But a monetary model...

An increasingly common approach to the theoretical analysis of monetary policy ensures that a proposed policy does not introduce real indeterminacy—and thus sunspot fluctuations—into the model economy. Policy is typically conducted in terms of directives for the nominal interest rate. This...

This working paper examines a theoretical model in which an entrepreneur’s net worth affects his ability to finance current activity. Net worth, in turn, is determined by asset prices, which can be affected by monetary policy. In this environment, the central bank plays a welfare-improving...

This paper analyzes the restrictions necessary to ensure that the policy rule used by the central bank does not introduce real indeterminacy into the economy. It conducts this analysis in a flexible price economy and a sticky price model. A robust conclusion is that to ensure determinacy, the...

Should monetary policy respond to asset prices? This paper analyzes this question from the vantage point of equilibrium determinacy.

Recessions are associated with both rising oil prices and increases in the federal funds rate. Are recessions caused by the spikes in oil prices or by the sharp tightening of monetary policy? This paper discusses the difficulties in disentangling these two effects.

A consideration of the welfare consequences of two simple monetary policy rules--an interest rate peg and a money growth peg--in a dynamic general-equilibrium model, indicating that the interest rate rule dominates the money growth rule.

An analysis of the quantitative effects of agency costs in a real business cycle model, showing that these costs can explain why output growth displays positive autocorrelation at short horizons.

It is well known that sunspot equilibria may arise under an interest-rate operating procedure in which the central bank varies the nominal rate with movements in future inflation (a forward-looking Taylor rule). This paper demonstrates that these sunspot equilibria may be learnable in the sense...

There is growing evidence that the empirical Phillips curve within the US has changed significantly since the early 1980’s. In particular, inflation persistence has declined sharply. The paper demonstrates that this decline is consistent with a standard Dynamic New Keynesian (DNK) model in...