How can a particular allocation and prices be implemented? Under what conditions does a policy deliver a unique competitive equilibrium? How many degrees of freedom there are in the determination of the policy variables, or how many are the instruments of policy? In this paper we analyze a...

How far to go – and to remain – in the direction of highly expansionary monetary policy hinges on the balance of marginal benefits and costs of additional monetary easing and its expected evolution over time. This paper sketches a framework for assessing this balance and applies it to four...

What instruments of monetary policy must be used in order to implement a unique equilibrium? This paper revisits the issues addressed by Poole (1970) and Sargent and Wallace (1975) on the multiplicity of equilibria when policy is conducted with either interest rate or money supply rules. We show...

This paper describes developments in real long-term interest rates in the main OECD economies and surveys their various determinants. Real long-term government bond yields declined from the 1980s to very low levels in the recent period, though they have not reached the historical lows of the...