A Monetary Policy Simulation Game

The author presents a computer game that puts the player in the role of a central bank governor. The game is a stochastic simulation of a standard reduced form macro model, and the user interacts with this simulation by manipulating the interest rate. The problem the player faces is in many ways quite realistic— just as a real monetary authority, the player is confronted with a constant stream of shocks he cannot unambiguously identify, and his decisions affect the economy only with a considerable lag. These are two ingredients that make monetary policy decisions so challenging in reality and that also make playing this game successfully rather difficult. The game can be used for undergraduate or continuing education classes. An “advanced mode†allows the teacher (or student) to customize many aspects of the simulation and to experiment with different calibrations or different monetary feedback rules.