This paper provides a systematic assessment of the effect of the Federal Reserve's asset purchase programs on Treasury yields, with particular emphasis on the role of market expectations about the evolution of the Federal Reserve's balance sheet and of interest rates on the impact of the...

The paper examines the effect of trend productivity growth on the determinacy and learnability of equilibria under alternative monetary policy rules. It shows that under a policy rule that responds to current period inflation and the output gap a higher trend growth rate relaxes the conditions...

A treatment of policy design for learnability in worlds where agents have potentially misspecified their learning models has yet to surface. This paper provides such a treatment. We begin with the notion that because the profession has yet to settle on a consensus model of the economy, it is...

In response to the pandemic, which unfurled starting in March 2020 and raised unemployment dramatically, the FOMC adopted a highly expansionary monetary policy. The policy restored the activist policy of aggregate demand management that had characterized the 1970s. It did so in two respects....

The authors study the hypothesis that misperceptions of trend productivity growth during the onset of the productivity slowdown in the United States caused much of the great inflation of the 1970s. They use the general equilibrium, sticky price framework of Woodford (2002), augmented with...

Lucas (1972) is the pathbreaking analysis of the neutrality and temporary non-neutrality of money. But our central banks set interest rate targets, and do not even pretend to control money supplies. How is inflation determined under an interest rate target? We finally have a complete theory of...

The Federal Reserve (Fed) has maintained a general trend toward increased transparency and gradualism. This paper investigates the implications of these historical developments for the anticipation of monetary policy actions and adjustment of interest rates. In a theoretical framework, we...

We investigate the effectiveness of an aggressive anti-inflation monetary policy on the ability of agents to achieve rational expectations equilibrium (REE) forecasts of inflation. An aggressive anti-inflation policy includes a willingness to respond more forcefully to deviations from an...

This paper investigates the effect of an aggressive price stabilizing monetary policy on the ability of agents to reach a rational expectations equilibrium (REE) for inflation and output. We provide a more robust policy implication than the one suggested by Bullard and Mitra (2002a,b). Using an...

Using randomized control trials (RCTs) applied over time in different countries, we study whether the economic environment affects how agents learn from new information. We show that as inflation rose in advanced economies, both households and firms became more attentive and informed about...