Recent research has emphasized that the Federal Reserve under Chairman Alan Greenspan was forward looking, smoothed interest rates, and focused on core inflation. The semiannual monetary policy reports to U.S. Congress indicate that the measure of inflation used in monetary policy deliberations...

This paper presents evidence that indicates that U.S. interest rate policy during most of the 1980s can be described by a reaction function in which the federal funds rate rises if real GDP rises above trend GDP, if actual inflation accelerates, or if the long-term bond rate rises. Money growth...