If a central bank adopted a zero inflation target, it would, in practice, occasionally deviate up and down from that rate, and the economy would experience episodes of mild inflation and deflation. Is deflation-a decrease in the level of prices-a cause for concern? Deflation can cause output to...

This paper develops a model with endogenous agency costs that is otherwise quite similar to the canonical real business cycle model. The traditional assumption in the literature is that these agency costs arise in the production of investment goods. In contrast, this paper assumes that these...

We document increased central bank independence within the set of industrialized nations. This increased independence can account for nearly two thirds of the improved inflation performance of these nations over the last two decades.

An argument that the Federal Reserve System's current approach to seasonal cycles--pegging the nominal interest rate--could successfully be applied to the business cycle as well.

Do exogenous money growth rules produce price level determinacy? This is a classic topic in monetary theory. This paper contributes to this literature by examining the effect of money demand timing. The paper demonstrates how conditions for determinacy vary depneding upon whether the theoretical...

This paper demonstrates that in a standard flexible-price monetary model there exists real indeterminacy whenever the nominal interest rate moves too closely with either current or forecasted inflation. However, an aggressive response to lagged inflation will ensure determinacy. These...