Macro models generally assume away heterogeneous welfare in assessing policies. We investigate here within two aggregative models ó one with a representative agent, the other a long-used forecasting model of the UK ó whether allowing for di§erences in welfare functions (speciÖcally between...

Under the assumption of bounded rationality, economic agents learn from their past mistaken predictions by combining new and old information to form new beliefs. The purpose of this paper is to examine how the policy-maker, by affecting private agents' learning process, determines the speed at...

This is a revised and shortened version of Working Paper 2002-11. Commitment in monetary policy leads to equilibria that are superior to those from optimal discretionary policies. A number of interest rate reaction functions and instrument rules have been proposed to implement or approximate...

Commitment in monetary policy leads to equilibria that are superior to those from optimal discretionary policies. A number of interest rate reaction functions and instrument rules have been proposed to implement or approxmiate commitment policy. We assess these optimal reaction functions and...

We consider "robust stability" of a rational expectations equilibrium, which we define as stability under discounted (constant gain) least-squares learning, for a range of gain parameters. We find that for operational forms of policy rules, i.e. rules that do not depend on contemporaneous values...