Setting the interest rate in an inflation targeting regime requires a total assessment, often translated into forecasts, of the outlook for inflation and real activity. In the assessment process, it is useful to have some references or cross-checks, in terms of simple rules. Although simple...

Between 2003 and 2006, the Federal Reserve raised rates by 4.25%. Yet it was precisely during this period that the housing boom accelerated, fueled by rapid growth in mortgage lending. There is deep disagreement about how, or even if, monetary policy impacted the boom. Using heterogeneity in...

We study the equilibrium properties of a business cycle model with financial frictions and price adjustment costs. Capital-constrained entrepreneurs finance risky projects by borrowing from banks. Banks, in turn, make loans using equity and deposits. Because financial contracts are not...

The determinacy of dynamic stochastic general equilibrium models including fiscal, macro-prudential or Taylor rules relies on the assumption that policy instruments are forward-looking when policy targets are also forward-looking. Blanchard and Kahn (1980) determinacy condition does not forbid...

Giannoni and Woodford (2003) found that the equilibrium determined by commitment to a super-inertial rule (where the sum of the parameters of lags of interest rate exceed ones and does not depend on the auto-correlation of shocks) corresponds to the unique bounded solution of Ramsey optimal...

We analyze the welfare impact of greater wage flexibility while taking into account explicitly the existence of the zero lower bound (ZLB) constraint on the nominal interest rate. We show that the ZLB constraint generally amplifies the adverse effects of greater wage flexibility on welfare when...

We estimate the natural rate of interest for the US and the euro area in a semi-structural model comprising a Taylor rule. Our estimates feature key elements of Laubach and Williams (2003), but are more consistent with using conventional policy rules: we model inflation to be stationary, with...

This paper determines conditions for the existence of a unique rational expectations equilibrium-determinacy-in a monetary policy switching economy. We depart from the existing literature by providing such conditions considering all bounded equilibria. We then apply these conditions to a new...