A heated debate has arisen over what Modigliani has dubbed the Macro Rational Expections (MRE) hypothesis. This hypothesis embodies two component hypotheses: 1) rational expectations and 2) short-run neutrality -- i.e., that anticipated changes in aggregate demand will have already been taken...

The impact of a money stock increase on nominal short-term interest rates has been a hotly debated issue in the monetary economics literature. The most commonly held view -- also a feature of most structural macro models--has an increase in the money stock leading, at least in the short-run, to...

This paper is an empirical exploration of real interest rate movements in the United States over the last fifty years. It focuses on several questions which have repeatedly arisen in the literature. How valid is the hypothesis associated with Fama (1975) that the real rate of interest is...

This paper is an application of efficient markets theory to analyze empirically the relationship of money supply growth and long-term interest rates. This approach has the advantage over earlier research on this subject in that it imposes a theoretical structure on this relationship that allows...

This paper conducts tests of the rationality of both inflation and short-term interest rate forecasts in the bond market. These tests are developed with the theory of efficient markets and make use of security price data to infer information on market expectations

Recent theorizing with business cycle models which incorporate features of the Friedman-Phelps natural rate model along with rational expectations lead to the following policy conclusions. Anticipated changes in aggregate demand policy will have already been taken into account in economic agents...

This paper argues that the rules versus discretion debate has been miscast because a central bank does not have to choose only between adopting a policy rule versus pure discretion, both of which have serious shortcomings. Rather it can choose a constrained discretionary regime that has...

This paper reviews Japanese monetary policy over the last two decades with an emphasis on the experience of deflation from the mid-1990s. The paper is quite critical of the conduct of monetary policy, particularly from 1998 to 2003. The Bank of Japan's rhetoric was not helpful in fighting...

This paper argues that much of the debate on choosing an exchange rate regime misses the boat. It begins by discussing the standard theory of choice between exchange rate regimes, and then explores the weaknesses in this theory, especially when it is applied to emerging market economies. It then...