From the early 1960s until the early 1970s with the emergence of rational expectations, under the rubric of monetarism, Milton Friedman defined macroeconomic debate. Although the Keynesian consensus that he challenged has disappeared, the current academic literature makes little reference to...

Many different models of money stock determination exist in the literature. An attempt is made here to understand why the differences in these models arise. Differences in models are ascribed first to the (usually implicit) role assigned to the price level. From this perspective, models fall...

On October 6, 1979, the Federal Reserve System changed its operating procedures in order to enhance its control of the money supply. The new procedures, which employed targets for nonborrowed reserves, remained in force until the fall of 1982. Though the Fed itself never characterized its policy...

The purpose of this paper is to elucidate the way in which current institutional arrangements shape the character of monetary policy. It is emphasized that the Fed, in order to preserve its independence, formulates monetary policy in a way that prevents the formation of coalitions within the...

The formulation and implementation of monetary policy is discussed for the period Oct. 1979 to Dec. 1983. Particular emphasis is placed upon understanding the operating procedures of the New York Desk. In this regard, two aspects are stressed. First, the way in which operating procedures derive...

The monetary standard emerges out of the interaction of monetary policy with the structure of the economy. Characterization of the monetary standard thus requires specification of a model of the economy with a central bank reaction function. Such a specification raises all the fundamental issues...