Policy options for stimulating real activity are limited once short-term interest rates have been driven to zero. Monetary policy makers face the difficult challenge of preventing or reversing declines in near-term inflation expectations while preserving confidence in the central bank's...

The classic Taylor rule for adjusting the stance of monetary policy is formally a special case of nominal- gross-domestic-product (GDP) targeting. Suitably implemented, moreover, nominal-GDP targeting satisfies the definition of a "flexible inflation targeting" policy rule. However, nominal-GDP...

John Taylor and David Romer champion an approach to teaching undergraduate macroeconomics that dispenses with the LM half of the IS-LM model and replaces it with a rule for setting the interest rate as a function of inflation and the output gap - i.e., a Taylor rule. But the IS curve is...

This paper analyzes three popular models of nominal price and wage frictions to determine which best fits post-war U.S. data. We construct a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model and use maximum likelihood to estimate each model's parameters. Because previous research finds that...

In this article, Evan Koenig derives the optimal monetary policy rule for an economy with contractual wage agreements. The optimal rule has the monetary authority target a weighted average of aggregate output and the price level. In a realistic special case, the optimal rule calls for the...

In Part 1 of this two-part series, Evan Koenig explains why some economists are skeptical that staggered price adjustment can account for monetary policy's sustained effects on aggregate economic activity. In Part 2, Koenig looks at labor-market imperfections as a possible source of persistence....

During the past two decades, financial innovations have proceeded at a rapid pace. These innovations have altered the liquidity of some assets relative to that of others. As a result, traditional measures of the money supply may have become less reliable as measures of household liquidity. Even...