In the New-Keynesian model, optimal interest rate policy under uncertainty is formulated without reference to monetary aggregates as long as certain standard assumptions on the distributions of unobservables are satisfied. The model has been criticized for failing to explain common trends in...

This paper introduces adaptive learning and endogenous indexation in the New-Keynesian Phillips curve and studies disinflation under inflation targeting policies. The analysis is motivated by the disinflation performance of many inflation-targeting countries, in particular the gradual Chilean...

A long-standing area of research and policy interest has been the construction of a measure of monetary policy stance. One measure that has been proposed—as an alternative to indices that employ monetary aggregates or exchange rates—is the spread between the actual real interest rate and its...

This paper models Chinese inflation using an output gap Phillips curve. Inflation modelling for the world’s sixth largest economy is a still under-researched topic. We estimate a partially forward-looking Phillips curve as well as traditional backward-looking Phillips curves. Using quarterly...

We reformulate the Smets-Wouters (2007) framework by embedding the theory of unemployment proposed in Galí (2011a,b). We estimate the resulting model using postwar U.S. data, while treating the unemployment rate as an additional observable variable. Our approach overcomes the lack of...

This paper contributes to a recent debate about the structural and institutional conditions under which discretion may be superior to timeless perspective. We show this is unlikely when the policy maker relies on a welfare-theoretic loss function obtained as a second-order approximation of...

Using a dynamic factor model that allows for changes in both the long- run growth rate of output and the volatility of business cycles, we document a significant decline in long-run output growth in the United States. Our evidence supports the view that this slowdown started prior to the Great...

Early studies of business cycles argued that contractions in economic activity were briefer (shorter) and more violent (rapid) than expansions. This paper systematically investigates this claim and in the process discovers a robust new business cycle fact: expansions and contractions in output...

The European Central Bank has assigned a special role to money in its two pillar strategy and has received much criticism for this decision. The case against including money in the central bank's interest rate rule is based on a standard model of the monetary transmission process that underlies...

The recent volatility in global commodity prices and in the price of oil, in particular, has created renewed interest in the question of how monetary policy makers should respond to oil price fluctuations. In this paper, we discuss why this question is ill-posed and has no general answer. The...