A prominent failure of the expectations theory of the term structure of interest rates concerns the magnitude of slope coefficients in regressions of short rate (or long rate) changes on long-short spreads. The anomalous empirical findings can be rationalized with the expectations theory by...

Analysis suggests that Bank of Japan (BOJ) policy has been insufficiently expansionary for over a decade; that the BOJ has faced special problems because of the zero lower bound on interest rates; and that the most promising approach would entail rapid base money growth effected primarily by purchases...

Both academic thinking about monetary economics and the practice of monetary policy have changed drastically since 1971-1973, when the rational expectations revolution was beginning and the Bretton Woods system was crumbling. The present article considers whether the various changes that have...

In analyses of "liquidity trap" problems associated with the zero lower bound (ZLB) on nominal interest rates, it is important to emphasize the difference between policy rule changes, intended to help escape an existing ZLB situation, and maintained policy rules designed so as to avoid ZLB...

This article conducts counterfactual historical analysis of several monetary policy rules by contrasting actual setting of instrument variables with values that would have been specified by the rules in response to prevailing conditions. Of particular interest is whether major policy mistakes,...

A policy rule can be activist; the distinction between rules and discretion depends on the stage at which optimization calculations enter the policy process. Here a specific monetary rule is proposed, one that sets the monetary base each quarter in a manner designed to keep nominal aggregate...

Recent mainstream monetary policy analysis focuses on rational expectation solutions that are uniquely stable. A number of recent studies have examined the question of whether typical New Keynesian (NK) models, with policy rules that satisfy the Taylor principle, also exhibit solutions with...

This paper conducts counterfactual historical analysis of several monetary policy rules by contrasting actual settings of instrument variables with values that would have been specified by the rules in response to prevailing conditions. Of particular interest is whether major policy mistakes,...

This paper explores several issues concerning a possible zero lower bound (ZLB) including its theoretical rationale; the magnitude of effects of low sustained inflation on real interest rates; the validity of analyzing monetary policy in models with no monetary variables; and the dynamic...

This paper argues that, in studying the monetary policy transmission process, more emphasis should be given to the systematic portion of policy behavior and correspondingly less to random shocks basically because shocks account for a very small fraction of policy-instrument variability. Analysis...