This paper investigates the desirability of adopting a rule in favor of discretionary monetary policy in a model exhibiting Kydland and Prescott's dynamic inconsistency problem. We deviate from earlier work by adopting assumptions regarding policymaker preferences and inflation dynamics that are...

We investigate the desirability of adopting a rule in favor of discretionary monetary policy in a model exhibiting Kydland and Prescott's dynamic inconsistency problem but no fundamental incompatibility between the policymaker's price stability and full employment objectives. We show that if...

We show that policy uncertainty about how the rising public debt will be stabilized accounts for the lack of deflation in the US economy at the zero lower bound. We first estimate a Markov-switching VAR to highlight that a zero-lower-bound regime captures most of the comovements during the Great...

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...

We show that policy uncertainty about how the rising public debt will be stabilized accounts for the lack of deflation in the US economy at the zero lower bound. We first estimate a Markov-switching VAR to highlight that a zero-lower-bound regime captures most of the comovements during the Great...

While high uncertainty is an inherent implication of the economy entering the zero lower bound, deflation is not, because agents are likely to be uncertain about the way policymakers will deal with the large stock of debt arising from a severe recession. We draw this conclusion based on a...

Since the 2001 recession, average core inflation has been below the Federal Reserve’s 2% target. This deflationary bias is a predictable consequence of a symmetric monetary policy strategy that fails to recognize the risk of encountering the zero-lower-bound. An asymmetric rule according to...

High uncertainty is an inherent implication of the zero lower bound, while deflation is not because of inflationary pressure due to uncertainty about how debt will be stabilized. We show that policy uncertainty empirically accounts for the absence of deflation in the US economy. Announcing...

We develop a theoretical framework to account for the observed instability of the link between inflation and fiscal imbalances across time and countries. Current policy makers behavior influences agents ' beliefs about the way debt will be stabilized. The standard policy mix consists of a...

We study optimal monetary policy design in a simple model that deviates from the linear-quadratic paradigm and provides a rationale for the practice of inflation zone targeting. We show that the presence of either zone-quadratic preferences or a zone-linear relationship between inflation and...