Stochastic simulations are employed to compare performances of monetary policy rules in linear and nonlinear variants of a small macro model with NAIRU uncertainty under different assumptions about the way inflation expectations are formed. Cases in which policy credibility is ignored or treated...

This paper offers several contributions to actual research and discussion on monetary policy. It clarifies the relationship between uncertainty of inflation persistence and optimal monetary policy and discusses the consequences of the recent Blanchard proposal to implement a higher inflation...

In 1994 the Federal Reserve System moved to a more transparent reporting of monetary policy. In this paper we first discuss the various sources of uncertainty that play an essential role in the formulation and conduct of monetary policy and evaluate the degree of uncertainty faced by monetary...

We analyse the interaction between private agents? uncertainty about inflation target and the central bank's data uncertainty. In our model, private agents update their perceived inflation target and the central bank estimates unobservable economic shocks as well as the perceived inflation...

The implications of uncertain policy preferences for the targeting and contracting approaches to monetary policy are investigated. It is shown that, in the presence of uncertain preferences, a linear incentive contract in the sense of Walsh performs better than an explicit inflation target as...

Inflation-targeting central banks have only imperfect knowledge about the effect of policy decisions on inflation. An important source of uncertainty is the relationship between inflation and unemployment. This paper studies the optimal monetary policy in the presence of uncertainty about the...

Even when the policy rate is currently not constrained by its effective lower bound (ELB), the possibility that the policy rate will become constrained in the future lowers today's inflation by creating tail risk in future inflation and thus reducing expected inflation. In an empirically rich...

In New Keynesian models favourable cost-push shocks lower inflation and increase output. Yet, when the central bank's inflation target is not perfectly observed these shocks turn contractionary as agents erroneously perceive a temporary reduction in the target. This effect is amplified when...

Existing papers studying optimal monetary policy when the central bank makes errors in measuring potential output typically treat those errors as exogenous to the model of the economy. Here we show that this is not an innocuous assumption, and can have important implications for optimal monetary...

Inflation-targeting central banks have only imperfect knowledge about the effect of policy decisions on inflation. An important source of uncertainty is the relationship between inflation and unemployment. This paper studies the optimal monetary policy in the presence of uncertainty about the...