This paper considers the desirability of the observed tendency of central banks to adjust interest rates only gradually in response to changes in economic conditions. It shows, in the context of a simple model of optimizing private-sector behavior, that such inertial behavior on the part of the...

We propose an integrated treatment of the problems of optimal monetary and fiscal policy, for an economy in which prices are sticky and the only available sources of government revenue are distorting taxes. Our linear-quadratic approach allows us to nest both conventional analyses of optimal...

This paper was presented as the 2006 W.A. Mackintosh Lecture at Queen's University. I consider some of the leading arguments for assigning an important role to tracking the growth of monetary aggregates when making decisions about monetary policy. First, I consider whether ignoring money means...

We analytically characterize optimal monetary policy for an augmented New Keynesian model with a housing sector. With rational private sector expectations about housing prices and inflation, optimal monetary policy can be characterized by a standard 'target criterion' that refers to inflation...

We analytically characterize optimal monetary policy for an augmented New Keynesian model with a housing sector. In a setting where the private sector has rational expectations about future housing prices and inflation, optimal monetary policy can be characterized without making reference to...

It is common to analyze the effects of alternative monetary policy commitments under the assumption of fully model-consistent expectations. This implicitly assumes unrealistic cognitive abilities on the part of economic decision makers. The relevant question, however, is not whether the...

We analytically characterize optimal monetary policy for an augmented New Keynesian model with a housing sector. In a setting where the private sector has rational expectations about future housing prices and inflation, optimal monetary policy can be characterized without making reference to...

We consider optimal monetary stabilization policy in a New Keynesian model with explicit microfoundations, when the central bank recognizes that private-sector expectations need not be precisely model-consistent, and wishes to choose a policy that will be as good as possible in the case of any...

While many analyses of monetary policy consider only a target for a short-term nominal interest rate, other dimensions of policy have recently been of greater importance: changes in the supply of bank reserves, changes in the assets acquired by central banks, and changes in the interest rate...