Empirical estimates of the Federal Reserve's policy rule typically find that the regression coefficient on the lagged federal funds rate is around 0.8 and strongly significant. One economic interpretation of this result is that the Fed intentionally "smoothes" interest rates, i.e., policymakers...

This paper explores the specification and use of uncertainty measures in constructions of policy forecasts of money market activity. The concept of a policy forecast implies efforts not only to explicitly condition forecasts on assumptions regarding short-run operating procedures but also to...