This article decomposes U.S. GDP into components associated with major macroeconomic disturbances in order to identify the likely causes of the 1990 recession. Four types of disturbances--aggregate supply, aggregate spending, money demand and money supply--are identified in the empirical...

This paper estimates a simple model of the Federal Reserve's "reaction function" - that is, the relationship between economic developments and the fed's response to them. We focus on how this estimated reaction function has changed over time. Such changes are not surprising given compositional...

Given doubts about the reliability of the monetary aggregates as intermediate targets of monetary policy, the Federal Reserve attempts to meet its dual goals--gradual reduction of inflation and mitigation of cyclical downturns in output--through purely discretionary adjustments of an interest...

Data on the monetary aggregates are the fundamental raw material for research in many facets of economics and finance. Money demand modeling, measurement of money stock announcement effects, tests of the rationality of preliminary money stock forecasts and financial market efficiency, and...

Traditionally, monetary policy has been conducted under a veil of secrecy. In its landmark Freedom of Information Act case, the Federal Reserve argued that it needed to delay the disclosure of its policy decision, claiming that immediate disclosure would cause the market to overreact or react in...

A history and analysis of the debate about whether monetary policy should be conducted by rules known in advance to all or by policymaker discretion.