This paper looks at the monetary policy decisions of the U.S. Federal Reserve and asks whether those decisions have been influenced solely by national concerns, or whether regional factors have played a role. All of the Federal Reserve's policymakers have some regional identity, i.e., either...

Systematic differences in the timing of wage setting decisions among industrialized countries provide an ideal framework to study the importance of wage rigidity in the transmission of monetary policy. The Japanese Shunto presents the most well-known case of bunching in wage setting decisions:...

Unemployment in Britain has fallen from high European-style levels to US levels. I argue that the key reasons are first the reform of monetary policy, in 1993 with the adoption of inflation targeting and in 1997 with the establishment of the independent Monetary Policy Committee, and second the...

This paper analyzes the conduct of monetary policy in an environment in which cyclical swings in risk appetite affect households' propensity to save. It uses a New-Keynesian model featuring external habit formation to show that taking note of precautionary saving motives justifies an...

We first establish that policymakers on the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee choose lower interest rates with experience. We then reject increasing confidence in private information or learning about the structure of the macroeconomy as explanations for this shift. Instead, a model in...

Financial institutions are increasingly linked internationally. As a result, financial crisis and government intervention have stronger effects beyond borders. We provide a model of international contagion allowing for bank bailouts. While a social planner trades off tax distortions, liquidation...

Using an endogenous portfolio choice model, this paper examines how different monetary policy regimes can lead to different foreign currency positions by changing the cyclical properties of the nominal exchange rate. We find that strict inflation targeting regimes are associated with a short...

Although the economic recovery in the UK has been disappointing, it is inappropriate to either assert that Japan's two lost decades illustrate the ineffectiveness of stimulative monetary policy or that the UK is predestined to perform as badly as Japan. Recall that the UK has, so far, avoided...

A striking fact about prices is the prevalence of ``sales': large temporary price cuts followed by a return exactly to the former price. This paper builds a macroeconomic model with a rationale for sales based on firms facing consumers with different price sensitivities. Even if firms can vary...