This article tells how the world achieved a working consensus on the core principles of monetary policy. The story begins with the muddled state of affairs in the late 1970s. It then asks: How did Federal Reserve policy produce an understanding of the practical principles of monetary policy? How...

The paper begins by tracing the origins of the case for inflation targeting in postwar US monetary history. It describes five aspects of inflation targeting practiced implicitly by the Greenspan Fed. It argues that (1) low long run inflation should be an explicit priority for monetary policy,...