Optimal monetary policy is studied in a model with no contractual restrictions or physical costs of changing prices. Nevertheless, the price level is sticky in a range of markup indeterminacy, and inflation occurs only when employment presses against capacity. Under full information, the...

Institutional knowledge of Federal Reserve policy procedures, simple economic theory, and the inflation scare concept explain interest rate policy as practiced by the Fed since 1979. The focus is the primary policy problem during the period: the acquisition and maintenance of credibility for the...

A standard statistical perspective on the U.S. Great Inflation is that it involves an increase in the stochastic trend rate of inflation, defined as the long-term forecast of inflation at each point in time. That perspective receives support from two sources: the behavior of long-term interest...