In recent years, activist monetary policy rules responding to inflation and the level of economic activity have been advanced as a means of achieving effective output stabilization without inflation. Advocates of such policies suggest that their flexibility may yield substantial stabilization...

An approach to decomposing and interpreting the inflation process is proposed. It suggests that the low U.S. inflation rate in recent years reflects a structural development, but that the low levels of unemployment may be a mainly cyclical phenomenon.

A new approach is proposed for estimating potential output and the NAIRU. Identification is achieved using Okun's law and a Phillips curve. The performance of the methodology is exemplified using data from Canada, the UK, and the US.

Macroeconomic and microeconomic data paint conflicting pictures of price behavior. Macroeconomic data suggest that inflation is inertial. Microeconomic data indicate that firms change prices frequently. We formulate and estimate a model which resolves this apparent micro - macro conflict. Our...

In this paper, we offer one possible way to estimate a key feature of the Bank of Canada s main macroeconomic model, the Quarterly Projection Model or QPM. The key feature which is the focus of this study is the so-called short-run equilibrium values or SREQs which link the dynamic portion of...

This paper considers the evidence of near-rationality, as described by Akerlof, Dickens, and Perry (2000). Using detailed surveys of household inflation expectations for the United States and Sweden, we find that the data are generally unsupportive of the near-rationality hypothesis. However, we...

Using a small empirical model of inflation, output, and money estimated on U.S. data, we compare the relative performance of monetary targeting and inflation targeting. The results show that monetary targeting would be quite inefficient, with both higher inflation and output variability. This is...

In this paper, I try to shed some new light on the puzzle why the Lucas critique, belived to be important by most economists, seems to have received very little empirical support. I use a real business cycle model to examine the properties of the super exogeneity test, which is used to detect...

This paper reviews four well known theoretical models of private bequest behavior, notes their differing implications for public policy, and discusses a way of empirically discriminating among them. Then it implements the test with micro data from Sweden (LLS) and the U.S. (PSID). The so-called...

We formulate an efficiency wage model with on-the-job search where wages depend on turnover and employers may use information on whether the searching worker is employed or unemployed as a hiring criterion. We show theoretically that ranking by employment status affects both the level and the...