Among the variables that play critical roles in the design of monetary policy, several are unobservable. These include such key variables as the neutral real rate of interest, the output gap, and the natural rate of unemployment. While individual central banks have undertaken efforts to estimate...

Central banks must make policy decisions in the face of uncertainty based on imperfect and evolving knowledge about the economy. While few general results have emerged from the research on monetary policy in the face of uncertainty and learning, a key lesson is that neither uncertainty nor...

Inflation targeting central banks have been at the forefront of the movement for greater transparency. In this paper, I explore two dimensions of transparency that are typically ignored in this literature — the quality of the information the central bank provides and how widely it publicizes...