The zero lower bound on nominal interest rates has constrained the Federal Reserve’s setting of the overnight federal funds rate for over three years running. According to many macroeconomic models, such an extended period of being stuck at the zero bound has important implications for the...

Presentation to the Financial Women’s Association of San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, October 15, 2012

The natural rate of interest -- the real interest rate consistent with output equaling potential -- plays an important role in both economic forecasting and monetary policy. Much of the literature has assumed that the natural rate of interest is constant. For example, the Taylor rule includes a...

Presentation to the Financial Women’s Association of San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, October 15, 2012

This paper investigates the role that imperfect knowledge about the structure of the economy plays in the formation of expectations, macroeconomic dynamics, and the efficient formulation of monetary policy. Economic agents rely on an adaptive learning technology to form expectations and to...

We develop an estimated model of the U.S. economy in which agents form expectations by continually updating their beliefs regarding the behavior of the economy and monetary policy. We explore the effects of policymakers' misperceptions of the natural rate of unemployment during the late 1960s...

Presentation to the Rotary Club of Seattle, Seattle, Washington, September 6, 2011

Presentation to the SPUR Business Breakfast Series, San Francisco, CA, April 4, 2012. ; President Williams presented similar remarks to the University of San Diego School of Business Administration in San Diego, California, on April 3, 2012.

Presentation to the Marian Miner Cook Athenaeum, Claremont McKenna College, Claremont, California, February 13, 2012

Presentation to the 2012 Santa Barbara County Economic Summit, Santa Barbara, CA, May 3, 2012