Before the recent recession, the consensus among researchers was that the zero lower bound (ZLB) probably would not pose a significant problem for monetary policy as long as a central bank aimed for an inflation rate of about 2 percent; some have even argued that an appreciably lower target...

An analysis shows that the Federal Reserve’s large-scale asset purchases have been effective at reducing the economic costs of the zero lower bound on interest rates. Model simulations indicate that, by 2012, the past and projected expansion of the Fed’s securities holdings since late 2008...

The zero lower bound on nominal interest rates constrains the central bank's ability to stimulate the economy during downturns. We use the FRB/US model to quantify the effects of the bound on macroeconomic stabilization and to explore how policy can be designed to minimize these effects. During...

In the presence of nominal rigidities, monetary policy can potentially improve welfare by reducing the magnitude of short-run fluctuations in inflation and resource utilization. According to a standard view of the monetary transmission mechanism, monetary policy stimulates economic activity by...

The zero lower bound on nominal interest rates constrains the central bank's ability to stimulate the economy during downturns. We use the FRB/US model to quantify the effects of the zero bound on macroeconomic stabilization and to explore how policy can be designed to minimize these effects....

The zero lower bound on nominal interest rates constrains the central bank's ability to stimulate the economy during downturns. We use the FRB/US model to quantify the effects of the bound on macroeconomic stabilization and to explore how policy can be designed to minimize these effects. During...

We exploit data on historical revisions to real-time estimates of the output gap to examine the implications of measurement error for the design of monetary policy, using the Federal Reserve's model of the U.S. economy, FRB/US. Measurement error brings about a substantial deterioration in...