This article discusses a technical aspect of the Federal Reserve's monetary targeting procedure that has come to be known as "base drift." The Fed has been announcing larger ranges for the growth of M1 and other monetary aggregates since 1975. These ranges have been expressed in terms of rates...

For the last three years, the Federal Open Market Committee has focused greater attention on certain monetary and credit aggregates in specifying its longer-run targets.

For most of the time since 1995, the Japanese price level has declined. Since early 1999, short-term interest rates have mostly remained near zero. Also, starting in 2001, the excess reserves held by banks have risen dramatically. Many observers have concluded that central banks are powerless to...

If monetary policy succeeds in keeping average inflation very low, nominal interest rates may occasionally be constrained by the zero lower bound. The degree to which this constraint has real implications depends on the monetary policy feedback rule and the structure of price-setting. Policy...

Considerable attention has been devoted to the reaction of interest rates, foreign exchange rates, and stock prices to unanticipated money growth revealed by the weekly M1 money stock announcement. Numerous articles have attempted to explain why nominal interest rates rise following the...

This paper examines whether monetary indicators are useful in implementing optimal discretionary monetary policy when the policy maker has incomplete information about the environment. We find that money does not contain useful information for the policy maker, if we calibrate the model to the...

We examine a standard model of capital accumulation in which spatial separation and limited communication create a role for money and shocks to portfolio needs create a role for banks. In this context we examine the existence, multiplicity, and dynamical properties of monetary equilibria with...

Arguments in favor of Keynesian models as opposed to real business cycle models are often made on the grounds that the correlations and impulse response patterns found in the latter are inconsistent with the data. A recent and prominent example of this reasoning is Gali (1999). But certain...

The paper presents the results of research conducted as part of the American Enterprise Institute's project on financial services regulation. It is a revision of a paper that later appeared in a volume providing a comprehensive review of financial regulatory policy entitled, Restructuring...

The monetary and payment system consequences of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks are reviewed and compared to selected U.S. banking crises. Interbank payment disruptions appear to be the central feature of all the crises reviewed. For some the initial trigger is a credit shock, while...