Not long ago futures trading was limited to contracts for agricultural and other commodities. Trading in futures contracts for financial instruments began in the early 1970s, after almost a decade of accelerating inflation exposed market participants to unprecedented levels of exchange rate and...

The behavior of the Federal Reserve System can be characterized as secretive with respect to its control of monetary aggregates. One common justification for this secrecy is that markets will overreact to information, causing undue variability in interest rates. However, the consequences of...

Returning to a topic first systematically treated by Poole (1970) in a textbook Keynesian model, this paper compares interest rate and money supply rules. Our analysis, by contrast, is conducted within a rational expectations macro model that incorporates flexible prices and informational...

Using a segmented market model that includes state-dependent asset market decisions along with access to credit, we analyze the impact that transactions credit has on interest rates and prices. We find that the availability of credit substantially changes the dynamics in the model, allowing...