This analysis of Allan Meltzer’s analytical framework focuses on the role that Meltzer assigned to the monetary base. For many years, Meltzer suggested that central banks should use the monetary base as their policy instrument, in place of a short-term nominal interest rate. However, he...

Nominal interest rates may remain substantially below the averages of the last half-century, as central bank's inflation objectives lie below the average level of inflation and estimates of the real interest rate likely to prevail over the long run fall notably short of the average real interest...

The zero lower bound (ZLB) constraint on interest rates makes speed limit policies (SLPs)---policies aimed at stabilizing the output growth---less effective. Away from the ZLB, the history dependence induced by a concern for output growth stabilization improves the inflation-output tradeoff for...

Can the central bank credibly commit to keeping the nominal interest rate low for an extended period of time in the aftermath of a deep recession? By analyzing credible plans in a sticky-price economy with occasionally binding zero lower bound constraints, I find that the answer is yes if...

In this paper, I propose an econometric technique to estimate a Markov-switching Taylor rule subject to the zero lower bound of interest rates. I show that incorporating a Tobit-like specification allows to obtain consistent estimators. More importantly, I show that linking the switching of the...

A number of prominent economists and policymakers have argued that money-financed fiscal programs (helicopter drops) could be efficacious in boosting output and inflation in economies facing persistent economic weakness, very low inflation, and significant fiscal strains. We employ a...

In response to the near collapse of US securitization markets in 2008, the Federal Reserve created the Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility, which offered non-recourse loans to finance investors' purchases of certain highly rated asset-backed securities. We study the effects of this...

We study optimal interest-rate policy in a New Keynesian model in which the economy can experience financial crises and the probability of a crisis depends on credit conditions. The optimal adjustment to interest rates in response to credit conditions is (very) small in the model calibrated to...

Friedman and Schwartz (1982) and Goodhart (1982) report a zero correlation between money growth and output growth in U.K. historical data. This finding is puzzling, as there is wide agreement that changes in monetary policy are frequently nonneutral in the short run and that the U.K. experience,...

In recent years, the scale and scope of major central banks' intervention in financial markets has expanded in unprecedented ways. In this paper, we demonstrate how monetary policy implementation that relies on such intervention in financial markets can displace private transactions....