Why legislate a policy rule now? Because monetary policy has recently become more discretionary, more short-term focused. My research shows that discretionary actions were, on balance, harmful. But even if one disagrees, such actions should raise concerns about a monetary system in which a great...

The recovery from the recession after the financial crisis, in both the UK and the US, has been very slow compared with other similar events in history. During the period before the financial crash and afterwards, monetary policy deviated from the very effeective rules-based approach of the...

In the aftermath of the global financial crisis and great recession, many countries face substantial deficits and growing debts. In the United States, federal government outlays as a ratio to GDP rose substantially from about 19.5 percent before the crisis to over 24 percent after the crisis. In...

This paper reports on recent research showing that the severe recession of 2007-2009 and the weak recovery have been due to poor economic policies and the failure to implement good policies during the past decade. Monetary policy, fiscal policy, and regulatory policy became more discretionary,...

At the center of the financial market crisis of 2007-2008 was a highly unusual jump in spreads between the overnight inter-bank lending rate and term London inter-bank offer rates (Libor). Because many private loans are linked to Libor rates, the sharp increase in these spreads raised the cost...

The recent financial crisis saw a dramatic and persistent jump in interest rate spreads between overnight federal funds and longer-term interbank loans. The Fed took several actions to reduce these spreads, including the creation of the Term Auction Facility (TAF). The effectiveness of these...

In this paper we investigate the comparative properties of empirically-estimated monetary models of the U.S. economy. We make use of a new database of models designed for such investigations. We focus on three representative models: the Christiano, Eichenbaum, Evans (2005) model, the Smets and...

In this paper we investigate the comparative properties of empirically-estimated monetary models of the U.S. economy. We make use of a new data base of models designed for such investigations. We focus on three representative models: the Christiano, Eichenbaum, Evans (2005) model, the Smets and...

This paper shows that the monetary policy paradigm that was in place before the financial crisis worked very well and that the crisis occurred only after policy makers deviated from that paradigm. The paper also evaluates monetary policy during the financial crisis by dividing the crisis into...