A number of recent studies have suggested that activist stabilization policy rules responding to inflation and the output gap can attain simultaneously a low and stable rate of inflation as well as a high degree of economic stability. The foremost example of such a strategy is the policy rule...

This paper employs several econometric techniques to estimate the Armenian output gap. The findings indicate that the output gap is significantly positive in 2007 and 2008 and decreased dramatically in 2009. The paper uses these results to estimate a New Keynesian Phillips curve for Armenia,...

In Africa, a number of countries like South Africa have adopted inflation targeting. In Nigeria, different monetary policy regimes have been adopted over the years with rather unsatisfactory success. This study examines inflation targeting in Nigeria and South Africa, using fully modified least...

This paper uses time-series data from India and tests for asymmetries in policy preferences of the Reserve Bank of India (the Central Bank of India, hereafter RBI). The results show evidence in favour of preference asymmetries in monetary policy reaction function in India and hence...

Policymakers often use the output gap, a noisy signal of economic activity, as a guide for setting monetary policy. Noise in the data argues for policy caution. At the same time, the zero bound on nominal interest rates constrains the central bank's ability to stimulate the economy during...

This paper studies optimal robust monetary policy when the central bank imperfectly observes potential output and has Knightian uncertainty about the intertemporal elasticity of substitution and the slope of the Phillips curve. The literature on optimal robust monetary policy has focused on...