Search Results
Journal Article
Assessing simple policy rules: A view from a complete macroeconomic model
Monetary policy analysts looking for a model on which to base decisions may consider two popular approaches-the New Keynesian (NK) and the identified vector autoregression (VAR) approaches. Choosing between the two can be difficult: NK models are stylized and have simple rules while structural VAR models have complex dynamics and loose behavioral interpretations. ; The simpler NK models often produce stark conclusions. For example, NK analyses consistently find that the Federal Reserve's monetary policy has improved markedly in the past two decades compared with the 1960s and 1970s. In ...
Working Paper
In search of the liquidity effect
A short-run negative relationship between monetary aggregates and interest rates--the "liquidity effect"--is central to popular, political, and academic discussions of monetary policy. This paper searches for this empirical relationship. We use monthly U.S. data since 1954 to ask if the characterization of the liquidity effect is sensitive to: (i) changes in sample period; (ii) conditioning the correlations on additional variables; (iii) assuming money growth is exogenous, and (iv) treating monetary changes as anticipated or unanticipated. ; The correlations change significantly with each ...
Working Paper
Generalizing the Taylor principle
Recurring change in a monetary policy function that maps endogenous variables into policy choices alters both the nature and the efficacy of the Taylor principle---the proposition that central banks can stabilize the macroeconomy by raising their interest rate instrument more than one-for-one in response to higher inflation. A monetary policy process is a set of policy rules and a probability distribution over the rules. We derive restrictions on that process that satisfy a long-run Taylor principle and deliver unique equilibria in two standard models. A process can satisfy the Taylor ...
Conference Paper
Monetary science, fiscal alchemy.
Working Paper
When do long-run identifying restrictions give reliable results?
Many recent papers have tried to identify behavioral disturbances in vector autoregressions (VAR's) by imposing restrictions on the long-run effects of shocks. This paper argues that this approach will support reliable structured inferences only if the underlying economy satisfies strong restrictions. Absent restrictions linking long-run and short-run dynamics, every decomposition of a VAR is essentially equally consistent with any long-run restriction. Further, dynamic common factor restrictions must hold if the scheme is to work properly in small models estimated using time-aggregated data. ...
Working Paper
\"Unfunded liabilities\" and uncertain fiscal financing
A rational expectations framework is developed to study the consequences of alternative means to resolve the "unfunded liabilities" problem--unsustainable exponential growth in federal Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid spending with no plan to finance it. Resolution requires specifying a probability distribution for how and when monetary and fiscal policies will change as the economy evolves through the 21st century. Beliefs based on that distribution determine the existence of and the nature of equilibrium. We consider policies that in expectation combine reaching a fiscal limit, ...
Working Paper
The dynamics of interest rate and tax rules in a stochastic model
A simple stochastic equilibrium structure is used to study the implications of monetary and fiscal policy interactions for government intertemporal budget balance. Existence and uniqueness of monetary equilibria are shown to depend on parameters of policy rules. The paper derives closed form solutions for equilibrium inflation and real debt as functions of policy parameters and policy shocks and obtains conditions under which the usual tests that deficits Granger-cause money creation will successfully uncover evidence of monetized deficits. In addition, equilibria are studied in which private ...