A common finding in the literature is that forward guidance cannot be credible under discretionary policy as long as the zero lower bound is an one-off event. However, this is not the case when recurring episodes of zero interest rates are possible. In this paper, we contribute to this new...

This paper provides an empirical assessment of the power of forward guidance at different horizons, shedding new light on the strength of the "forward guidance puzzle". Our identification strategy allows us to disentangle the change in future interest rates stemming from deviations from the...

We develop and apply a procedure to test the welfare implications of a beauty and non-beauty contest based on survey forecasts of interest rates and yields in a large country sample over an extended period of time. In most countries, interest rate forecasts are unbiased and consistent with both...

Central bank communications are an important tool for guiding the economy and fulfilling monetary policy goals. Natural language processing (NLP) algorithms have been used to analyze central bank communications. These outdated bag-of-words methods often ignore context and cannot distinguish who...

Central bank communication plays an important role in shaping market participants' expectations. This paper studies a simple nonlinear model of monetary policy in which agents have incomplete information about the economic environment. It shows that agents' learning and the dynamics of the...

We describe the inflation targeting framework (ITF) and compare it against hypothetical best-practice based on optimization. The core requirements of the ITF are an explicit long-run inflation goal and a commitment to transparency in policymaking. Advocates and practitioners of the ITF have made...

This paper studies the impact of different types and styles of Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) communication on asset prices (stock prices, gilt yields and interest rate futures) from 1999-2023. We extend MPC communication to include MPC speeches and find MPC speeches to be an...

This paper studies the impact of different types and styles of Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) communication on asset prices (stock prices, gilt yields and interest rate futures) from 1999-2023. We extend MPC communication to include MPC speeches and find MPC speeches to be an...

Should inflation be thought of as "just another tax?" The theoretical basis for doing so dates back to Phelps (1973) and has been greatly refined ever since. Since optimal taxation minimizes the deadweight loss by equalizing the marginal distortions of all available taxes, including the...

Independent central banks are thought to be effective inflation hawks because they are run by technocrats with conservative monetary policy preferences. But central bankers can only protect their independence by compromising with the elected officials who grant them their independence. Policy,...