Ball (1997) shows using a small closed economy model that nominal GDP targeting can lead to instability. This paper extends Ball's model to uncover the role inflation expectations play in generating this instability. By changing the process by which inflation expectations are formed in the...

We study the effects of optimized monetary policy in a semi-structural, estimated small open economy in situations where the policymaker has either complete or less than complete confidence in the model being free from misspecification errors. We use the robust control techniques developed by...

This Economic Letter summarizes the papers presented at a conference on "Fiscal and Monetary Policy" held at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco on March 4 and 5, 2005.

This Economic Letter looks at the problems with the NKPC and discusses some alternatives that are increasingly being used to think about inflation and the monetary policy transmission mechanism.

Inflation targeting has been adopted by many central banks, but not by the U.S. Federal Reserve. Using an estimated New Keynesian business cycle model, I perform counterfactual simulations to consider how history might have unfolded if the Federal Reserve had adopted a form of flexible inflation...

Consumption-habits have become an integral component in new Keynesian models. However, consumption-habits can be modeled in a host of different ways and this diversity is reflected in the literature. I examine whether different approaches to modeling consumption habits have important...

This paper uses a small data-consistent model of the United States to identify and estimate the Federal Reserve's policy preferences. We find critical differences between the policy regimes in operation during the Burns-Miller and Volcker-Greenspan periods. Over the Volcker-Greenspan period we...

This paper develops algorithms that solve for optimal discretionary and optimal pre-commitment policies in rational-expectations models. The techniques developed are simpler to apply than existing methods; they do not require identifying and separating predetermined variables from jump...

Economic outcomes in dynamic economies with forward-looking agents depend crucially on whether or not the central bank can precommit, even in the absence of the traditional "inflation bias." This paper quantifies the welfare differential between precommitment and discretionary policy in both a...