A number of recent papers have explored monetary policy options, including inflation targeting and inflation forecast targeting (notably Svensson (1999a, 1999b, 2000)) and price level targeting (Wolman 2000, Batini and Yates 1999, Blinder 1999). Most papers explore "optimal" monetary policy in...

The Pure Expectations Hypothesis has long served as the preeminent benchmark model of the relationship between the yields on bonds of different maturities. When coupled with rational expectations, however, most empirical renderings of the model fail miserably. This paper explores the possibility...

A diverse group of economists and policymakers gathered in Woodstock, Vermont, in October 1999 to discuss the conduct of monetary policy in a low-inflation environment. The conference was held at a time when many countries had successfully reduced their inflation rates to the low single digits,...

A time-honored description of the "monetary transmission channel" suggests that the Fed controls the federal funds rate, which affects the rates on longer-term credit market instruments, which affect the expected real (inflation-adjusted) rates on longer-term instruments, which affect real...

The conference papers and panel discussion explored a number of issues bearing on monetary policy design and operation in an environment of very low nominal interest rates.

Using a short-term interest rate as the monetary policy instrument can be problematic near its zero bound constraint. An alternative strategy is to use a long-term interest rate as the policy instrument. We find when Taylor-type policy rules are used to set the long rate in a standard New...

This paper examines a recent shift in the dynamics of the term structure and interest rate risk. We first use standard yield-spread regressions to document such a shift in the U.S. in the mid-1980s. Over the pre- and post-shift subsamples, we then estimate dynamic, affine, no-arbitrage models,...

Estimated monetary policy rules often appear to indicate a sluggish partial adjustment of the policy interest rate by the central bank. In fact, such evidence does not appear to be persuasive, since the illusion of monetary policy inertia may reflect spuriously omitted persistent influences on...

The amount of information in the yield curve for forecasting future changes in short rates varies with the maturity of the rates involved. Indeed, spreads between certain long and short rates appear unrelated to future changes in the short rate--contrary to the rational expectations hypothesis...

This paper examines a recent shift in the dynamics of the term structure and interest rate risk. We first use standard yield-spread regressions to document such a shift in the U.S. in the mid-1980s. Over the pre- and post-shift subsamples, we then estimate dynamic, affine, no-arbitrage models,...