Given regime switches in the economy's growth rate, optimal monetary policy rules may respond by switching policy parameters. These optimized parameters differ across regimes and from the optimal choice under fixed regimes, particularly in the inflation target and interest rate inertia. Optimal...

This paper analyses the implications of cost-push shocks for the optimal choice of monetary policy target in an two-country sticky-price model. In addition to cost-push shocks, each country is subject to labour-supply and money-demand shocks. It is shown that the fully optimal coordinated policy...

This paper investigates how institutional constraints discipline the behavior of discretionary governments subject to an expenditure bias. The focus is on constraints implemented in actual economies: monetary policy targets, limits on the deficit and debt ceilings. For a variety of aggregate...

Many argue that, in the presence of a lower bound on nominal interest rates, central banks should use a risk management approach for setting policy, which implies commit- ting to a more expansionary policy to deal with uncertainty about the economic recovery. Using a standard model for monetary...

This paper measures the welfare gains of switching from inflation-targeting to price-level targeting under imperfect credibility. Vestin (2006) shows that when the monetary authority cannot commit to future policy, price-level targeting yields higher welfare than inflation targeting. We revisit...

This paper measures the welfare gains of switching from inflation-targeting to price-level targeting under imperfect credibility. Vestin (2006) shows that when the monetary authority cannot commit to future policy, price-level targeting yields higher welfare than inflation targeting. We revisit...

Monetary policy in CEE is an important determinant in the wage bargaining process, because trade unions have to predict inflation as one component of future real wages. This paper scrutinizes whether countries in CEE that officially announce an inflation target are tempted to act...

How important are the benefits of low price-level uncertainty? This paper explores the desirability of price-level path targeting in an estimated DSGE model fit to Canadian data. The policy implications are based on social welfare evaluations. Compared to the historical inflation targeting rule,...

Variable and high rates of price inflation in the 1970s and 1980s led many countries to delegate the conduct of monetary policy to "instrument-independent" central banks and to give their central banks a clear mandate to pursue price stability and instrument independence to achieve it. Advances...