The focus of the paper is to analyze how the concept behind central bank policy developed over time and how the recent financial crisis and its consequences will have an influence. While the principles of the institutional arrangement for central banks (independence, clear mandate, prohibition...

In this paper, we provide some reflections on the development of monetary theory and monetary policy over the last 150 years. Rather than presenting an encompassing overview, which would be overambitious, we simply concentrate on a few selected aspects that we view as milestones in the...

There is widespread agreement that a surprise increase in an economy's money supply drives the nominal interest rate down and economic activity up, at least in the short run. This is understood as reflecting the dominance of the liquidity effect of a money shock over an opposing force, the...

We present a model embodying moderate amounts of nominal rigidities which accounts for the observed inertia in inflation and persistence in output. The key features of our model are those that prevent a sharp rise in marginal costs after an expansionary shock to monetary policy. Of these...

This paper outlines important lessons for monetary policy. In particular, the role of inflation targeting, which was much acclaimed prior to the financial crisis and since then has not lost much of its endorsement, is critically reviewed. Ignoring the relation between monetary policy and asset...

The focus of the paper is to analyze how the concept behind central bank policy developed over time and how the recent financial crisis and its consequences will have an influence. While the principles of the institutional arrangement for central banks (independence, clear mandate, prohibition...

This paper presents new empirical evidence to support the hypothesis that positive money supply shocks drive short-term interest rates down. We then present a quantitative, general equilibrium model which is consistent with this hypothesis. The two key features of our model are that (i) money...