Working Paper

Optimal monetary policy in a model of overlapping price contracts


Abstract: This study estimates a model of overlapping nominal price contracts over three distinct monetary policy regimes, testing the stability of the parameters in the model across regimes. Upon finding a model that is stable over the three subsamples, the model then holds for the most recent monetary regime is used to compute the optimal policy frontier - the efficient combinations of output and inflation variances - and compared to actual policy performance. The study then evaluates the robustness of policy conclusions to particulars of the specification, and discusses the general properties that are required of a model in order to produce a plausible estimate of the optimal policy frontier.

Keywords: Prices; Monetary policy;

Status: Published in Journal of Money, Credit and Banking 29, no. 2 (May 1997): 214-34.

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Bibliographic Information

Provider: Federal Reserve Bank of Boston

Part of Series: Working Papers

Publication Date: 1994

Number: 94-2