Suppose that the Fed were to adopt a policy rule. Which rule should it adopt? We propose three criteria. First, the rule should be consistent with good economic performance over a long historical period. Second, the rule should be consistent with recent Fed policy following the Great Recession....

The size of the output gap coefficient is the key determinant of whether quantitative easing since 2009 and continued near-zero interest rates can by justified by a Taylor rule. Fed Chair Ben Bernanke and Vice-Chair Janet Yellen have argued that John Taylor proposed a monetary policy rule with a...

Debates about the conduct of monetary policy have evolved over time from “rules versus discretion” to “policy rules versus constrained discretion.” We propose a metric to evaluate monetary policy rules that are consistent with constrained discretion by calculating quadratic loss ratios,...

Can U.S. monetary policy in the 1970s be described by a stabilizing Taylor rule with a two percent inflation target when policy is evaluated with real-time inflation and output gap data? If so, it is problematic to use the Taylor rule as a guide to good policy as the Federal Reserve implements...

Rules-based monetary policy evaluation has long been central to macroeconomics. Using the original Taylor rule, a modified Taylor rule with a higher output gap coefficient, and an estimated Taylor rule, we define rules-based and discretionary eras by smaller and larger policy rule deviations,...