We all know the size of the Fed chairman's briefcase as a policy indicator is a joke. But would knowing what's inside the briefcase be of real help?

There has been a remarkable increase in the FOMC’s communication over the last decade. Perhaps the most dramatic change was the inclusion of language indicating the possible direction of future policy. One example is the now famous “considerable-period” language that was inserted in August...

This study offers a historical review of the monetary policy reform of October 6, 1979, and discusses the influences behind it and its significance. We lay out the record from the start of 1979 through the spring of 1980, relying almost exclusively upon contemporaneous sources, including the...

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...

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...