Monetary policy is hard. In the best of times, it requires a well-informed understanding of the economy and the ability to respond in a timely manner. In less favorable conditions, monetary policy requires near omniscience and the herculean power to stop economic disasters from unfolding.This...

In this paper we systematically evaluate how central banks respond to inflation deviations from target. We present a stylized New Keynesian model in which agents' inflation expectations are sensitive to inflation deviations from target. To (re-)establish credibility, optimal monetary policy...

We study the characteristics of inflation targeting as a shock absorber, using quarterly data for a large panel of countries. To overcome an endogeneity problem between monetary regimes and the likelihood of crises, we propose to study large natural disasters. We find that inflation targeting...

Post great financial crisis (GFC) of 2008-2009, there has been a surge in the macroeconomics literature on aggregate uncertainty. Although the recent literature has recognized adverse real effects of global uncertainty shocks in EMEs, the role of monetary policy in mitigating these effects is...

In a fixed-regime setting, it is known since Leeper (1991) that both monetary dominance (mix of active monetary and passive fiscal policies) and fiscal dominance (mix of active fiscal and passive monetary policy) regimes yield a determinate unique equilibrium. This paper shows that in a...

This paper assesses the importance of the zero lower bound on nominal interest rates for the interest-rate channel of monetary policy. We simulate several interest-rate setting policy rules with either high or low inflation targets. We determine the extent to which the zero bound prevents real...

The Fed's policy rule switches during the different phases of the business cycle. This finding is established using a dynamic mixture model to estimate regime-dependent Taylor-type rules on US quarterly data from 1960 to 2021. Instead of exogenously partitioning the data based on tenures of the...

We develop simple diagrams that can be used by undergraduates to understand interest rate setting by policy-makers. We combine an inflation target, Fisher equation, policy reaction function and short and long run aggregate supply analysis to give a depiction of the policy problem. We illustrate...

We develop simple diagrams that can be used by undergraduates to understand interest rate setting by policy-makers. We combine an inflation target, Fisher equation, policy reaction function and short and long run aggregate supply analysis to give a depiction of the policy problem. We illustrate...

Refet Gürkaynak, Brian Sack, and Eric Swanson (2005) provide empirical evidence that long forward nominal rates are overly sensitive to monetary policy shocks, and that this is consistent with a model where long-term inflation expectations are not anchored because agents must infer the central...