This paper demonstrates that the behavior of the conventional Phelps-Taylor model of overlapping wage contracts stands in stark contrast with important features of U.S. macro data for inflation and output. In particular, the Phelps-Taylor specification implies far too little inflation...

Since the stock market boom of the 1990s, many have suggested the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) has adopted an unannounced policy goal of supporting equity values. This paper offers a new approach to disentangle the relationship between changes in equity values and monetary policy....

Since the publication (1976) of the classic Lucas critique, researchers in empirical macroeconomics have endeavored to specify models that capture the underlying dynamic decision-making behavior of consumers and firms who require forecasts of future events. Recently, a number of researchers have...

This paper assesses the importance of the zero lower bound on nominal interest rates for the interest-rate channel of monetary policy. We simulate several interest-rate setting policy rules with either high or low inflation targets. We determine the extent to which the zero bound prevents real...