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Journal Article
Optimal monetary policy under uncertainty: a Markov jump-linear-quadratic approach
This paper studies the design of optimal monetary policy under uncertainty using a Markov jump-linear-quadratic (MJLQ) approach. To approximate the uncertainty that policymakers face, the authors use different discrete modes in a Markov chain and take mode-dependent linear-quadratic approximations of the underlying model. This allows the authors to apply a powerful methodology with convenient solution algorithms that they have developed. They apply their methods to analyze the effects of uncertainty and potential gains from experimentation for two sources of uncertainty in the New Keynesian ...
Working Paper
Current Account Dynamics and Monetary Policy
We explore the implications of current account adjustment for monetary policy within a simple two country DSGE model. Our framework nests Obstfeld and Rogoff's (2005) static model of exchange rate responsiveness to current account reversals. It extends this approach by endogenizing the dynamic adjustment path and by incorporating production and nominal price rigidities in order to study the role of monetary policy. We consider two different adjustment scenarios. The first is a "slow burn"where the adjustment of the current account deficit of the home country is smooth and slow. The second is ...
Conference Paper
Policy rules for inflation targeting
Working Paper
Eurosystem monetary targeting: lessons from U.S. data.
Using a small empirical model of inflation, output, and money estimated on U.S. data, we compare the relative performance of monetary targeting and inflation targeting. The results show that monetary targeting would be quite inefficient, with both higher inflation and output variability. This is true even with a deterministic money demand formulation. In this framework, there is thus no support for the prominent role given to money growth in the Eurosystem's monetary policy strategy.
Journal Article
Targeting versus instrument rules for monetary policy: what is wrong with McCallum and Nelson?
In their paper "Targeting versus Instrument Rules for Monetary Policy," McCallum and Nelson critique targeting rules for the analysis of monetary policy. Their arguments are rebutted here. First, McCallum and Nelson's preference to study the robustness of simple monetary policy rules is no reason at all to limit attention to simple instrument rules; simple targeting rules may have more desirable properties. Second, optimal targeting rules are a compact, robust, and structural description of goal-directed monetary policy, analogous to the compact, robust, and structural consumption Euler ...
Conference Paper
Monetary policy after the crisis
Working Paper
Optimal monetary policy in an operational medium-sized DSGE model
We show how to construct optimal policy projections in Ramses, the Riksbank's open-economy medium-sized DSGE model for forecasting and policy analysis. Bayesian estimation of the parameters of the model indicates that they are relatively invariant to alternative policy assumptions and supports our view that the model parameters may be regarded as unaffected by the monetary policy specification. We discuss how monetary policy, and in particular the choice of output gap measure, affects the transmission of shocks. Finally, we use the model to assess the recent Great Recession in the world ...
Working Paper
Expected and predicted realignments: the FF/DM exchange rate during the EMS
An empirical model of time-varying realignment risk in an exchange rate target zone is developed. Expected rates of devaluation are estimated as the difference between interest rate differentials and estimated expected rates of depreciation within the exchange rate band, using French Franc/Deutsche Mark data during the European Monetary System. The behavior of estimated expected rates of depreciation accord well with the theoretical model of Bertola-Svensson (1990). We are also able to predict actual realignments with some success.
Working Paper
Optimal policy projections
We outline a method to provide advice on optimal monetary policy while taking policymakers' judgment into account. The method constructs optimal policy projections (OPPs) by extracting the judgment terms that allow a model, such as the Federal Reserve Board staff economic model, FRB/US, to reproduce a forecast, such as the Greenbook forecast. Given an intertemporal loss function that represents monetary policy objectives, OPPs are the projections---of target variables, instruments, and other variables of interest---that minimize that loss function for given judgment terms. The method is ...