A number of inflation targeting central banks operate under provisions that allow for increased flexibility when faced with large supply shocks. These so-called escape clauses, however, are usually hard to interpret and discretionary in nature. This paper argues that a practical and more viable...

In this paper we examine how target ranges work in the context of a Barro-Gordon (1983) type model, in which the time-inconsistency problem stems from political pressures from the government. We show that target ranges turn out to be an excellent way to cope with the time-inconsistency problem,...

One of the great successes of the law and economics movement has been the use of economic models to explain the structure and function of broad areas of law. The original contributions to this volume epitomize that tradition, offering state-of-the-art research on the many facets of economic...

In the New Keynesian framework, the public's expectation about the future path of monetary policy is an important determinant of current economic conditions. This paper examines the impact of unobservable shifts in the central bank's output gap target on inflation and output dynamics. I show...