This paper reviews the inflation experience in the post-Bretton Woods era in the context of alternative central bankobjectives. It summarizes research on inflation-targeting issues, especially those associated with stabilizing the price level. Generally, inflation-targeting schemes do not...

This paper shows that the optimal monetary policies recommended by New Keynesian models still imply a large amount of inflation risk. We calculate the term structure of inflation uncertainty in New Keynesian models when the monetary authority adopts the optimal policy. When the monetary policy...

Empirical work in macroeconomics is plagued by small sample size and large idiosyncratic variation. This problem is especially severe in the case of transition economies. We use a mixed estimation method incorporating information from OECD country data to estimate the parameters of a...

In this paper, we examine the areas of indeterminacy in a flexible price RBC model with shopping time role for money and a central bank that uses an interest rate rule to target inflation and/or the price level. We present analytical results showing that, although inflation targeting often...

This paper summarizes recent developments in the theory and practice of monetary policy in a closed economy and explains what these developments mean for United States dollar policy. There is no conflict between what is appropriate U.S. monetary policy at home or abroad because the dollar is the...

This paper examines the stimulative effect of central bank forward guidance—the promise to keep future policy rates lower than its policy rule suggests—when the short-term nominal interest rate is stuck at its zero lower bound (ZLB).We utilize a standard New Keynesian model in which forward...

Inflation targeting has worked so well because it leads policymakers to debate, decide on, and communicate the inflation objective. In practice, this process has led the public to believe that the central bank has a long-term inflation objective. Inflation targeting has been successful, then,...

Federal Reserve policymakers began reporting their economic forecasts to Congress in 1979. These forecasts are important because they indicate what the Federal Open Market Committee members think will be the likely consequence of their policies. The Fed reports both the range (high and low) of...

Gavin and Kydland (1999) calculated the cyclical properties of money and prices for the periods before and after the October 1979 policy change. In this article, we extend that work by adding four more years of data and including a study of nominal interest rates and inflation. The adoption of a...

If the central bank follows an interest rate rule, then inflation is likely to be persistence, even when prices are fully flexible. Any shock, whether persistent or not, may lead to inflation persistence. In equilibrium, the dynamics of inflation are determined by the evolution of the spread...