Search Results
Working Paper
Gold, fiat money and price stability
The classical gold standard has long been associated with long-run price stability. But short-run price variability led critics of the gold standard to propose reforms that look much like modern versions of price-path targeting. This paper uses a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model to examine price dynamics under alternative policy regimes. In the model, an inflation target provides more short-run price stability than does the gold standard and, although it introduces a unit root into the price level, it leads to as much long-term price stability as does the gold standard for ...
Working Paper
What do New-Keynesian Phillips Curves imply for price level targeting?
This paper extends the analysis of price level targeting to a model including the New-Keynesian Phillips Curve. We examine the inflation-output variability tradeoffs implied by optimal inflation and price level rules. In previous work with the Neoclassical Phillips Curve, we found that the choice between inflation targeting and price level targeting depended on the amount of persistence in the output gap. That is, if the output gap was not too persistent, or if lagged output did not enter the aggregate supply function, then inflation targets were preferred to price level targets. When we ...
Journal Article
The inflation-output variability tradeoff and price-level targets
In this article, the authors describe a popular monetary policy framework based on a neoclassical Phillips Curve model. Here, the choice between an inflation target and a price-level target depends on characteristics of real output. If the output gap is relatively persistent, then targeting the price level results in a better set of policy options for the central bank. The authors present evidence from the G-10 countries showing that conventionally measured output gaps are highly persistent. The policy implication of assuming rational expectations and this Phillips Curve model is that central ...
Working Paper
Is technical analysis in the foreign exchange market profitable? a genetic programming approach
Using genetic programming techniques to find technical trading rules, we find strong evidence of economically significant out-of-sample excess returns to those rules for each of six exchange rates, over the period 1981-1995. Further, when the dollar/deutschemark rules are allowed to determine trades in the other markets, there is a significant improvement in performance in all cases, except for the deutschemark/yen. Betas calculated for the returns according to various benchmark portfolios provide no evidence that the returns to these rules are compensation for bearing systematic risk. ...
Working Paper
Inflation persistence and flexible prices
If the central bank follows an interest rate rule, then inflation is likely to be persistence, even when prices are fully flexible. Any shock, whether persistent or not, may lead to inflation persistence. In equilibrium, the dynamics of inflation are determined by the evolution of the spread between the real interest rate and the central bank?s target. Inflation persistence in U.S. data can be characterized by a vector autocorrelation function relating inflation and deviations of output from trend. This paper shows that a flexible-price general equilibrium business cycle model with money and ...
Journal Article
Price-level uncertainty and inflation targeting
In this paper, Dittmar, Gavin and Kydland make two points about commonly proposed rules for inflation targeting. First, they argue that there is a great deal of uncertainty about the price level and inflation inherent in current proposals to target inflation. They show that the degree to which the central bank cares about the real economy can have a large impact on price level (and inflation) uncertainty. They find that the magnitudes of uncertainty that prevailed across the G-10 throughout the last four decades are the expected consequence of commonly proposed inflation-targeting regimes. ...
Working Paper
Inflation-targeting, price-path targeting and indeterminacy
In this paper, we examine the areas of indeterminacy in a flexible price RBC model with shopping time role for money and a central bank that uses an interest rate rule to target inflation and/or the price level. We present analytical results showing that, although inflation targeting often results in real indeterminacy, a price level target generally delivers a unique equilibrium for a relevant range of policy parameters.
Working Paper
Stochastic capital depreciation and the comovement of hours and productivity
An unresolved question concerning stochastic depreciation shocks is whether they have to be unrealistically large to have any useful role in a dynamic general equilibrium model economy, as Ambler and Paquet (1994) first suggested. We first consider implied depreciation rates from sectoral data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis. These depreciation rates vary across time solely due to compositional changes within each sector. Hence, they tend to understate the range of fluctuation that would hold if the economic shelf life of capital varied endogenously as in Cooley, Greenwood and Yorukoglu ...
Journal Article
What do New-Keynesian Phillips Curves imply for price-level targeting?
This paper extends the analysis of price-level targeting to a model including the New-Keynesian Phillips Curve. We examine the inflation-output variability tradeoffs implied by optimal inflation and price-level rules. In previous work with the Neoclassical Phillips Curve, we found that the choice between inflation targeting and price-level targeting depended on the amount of persistence in the output gap. That is, if the output gap was not too persistent, or if lagged output did not enter the aggregate supply function, then inflation targets were preferred to price-level targets. When we ...
Conference Paper
Long-run risks and equity Returns