The purpose of this study is to assess the current state of understanding about the effects of monetary policy, both at the conceptual level and in the light of the experience of the seven major OECD countries (the United States, Japan, Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Italy and Canada) and...

This paper reassesses, in the light of recent experience, the formulation of monetary policy in terms of targets for monetary aggregates in the major countries. A number of difficulties which have arisen are discussed: instability of the money-income relationship; constraints created by fiscal...

During the past decade, the formulation of fiscal policy has been increasingly founded on medium-term considerations associated with public debt and economic efficiency. In this regard, this paper, and the ones by Olivier Blanchard and Edward Gramlich in the same Working Paper Series, considers...