Using stochastic simulations and stability analysis, the paper compares how different monetary rules perform in a moderately nonlinear model with a time-varying nonaccelerating-inflation-rate-of-unemployment (NAIRU). Rules that perform well in linear models but implicitly embody backward-looking...

The Federal Reserve allowed unemployment to fall substantially in the late 1990s, to a level well below earlier estimates of the NAIRU, without a corresponding tightening of monetary policy. In addition, Meyer (1999) has suggested that episodes of heightened uncertainty about the NAIRU may...