We conduct a fairly thorough statistical analysis of the empirical foundations for the existence of a Taylor rule. Inflation, the output gap and the federal funds rate appear to be non-stationary variables that are not cointegrated. Although this lack of cointegration could be caused by missing...

We develop a stylized dynamic model of highway policing in which a non-racist policeman is given incentives to arrest criminals, but faces a per stop cost of stop which increases when the racial mix of the persons he stops differs from the racial mix of the population. We define the fair jail...

In this paper we propose tests for hypothesis regarding the parameters of a the deterministic trend function of a univariate time series. The tests do not require knowledge of the form of serial correlation in the data and they are robust to strong serial correlation. The data can contain a unit...

We investigate the possibility that the Taylor rule should be formulated as a threshold process such that the Federal Reserve acts more aggressively in some circumstances than in others. It seems reasonable that the Federal Reserve would act more aggressively when inflation is high than when it...