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Working Paper
The opportunistic approach to disinflation
This paper explores the theoretical foundations of a new approach to monetary policy. Proponents of this approach hold that when inflation is moderate but still above the long-run objective, the Fed should not take deliberate anti-inflation action, but rather should wait for external circumstances-such as favorable supply shocks and unforeseen recessions-to deliver the desired reduction in inflation. While waiting for such circumstances to arise, the Fed should aggressively resist incipient increases in inflation. This strategy has come to be known as "the opportunistic approach to ...
Working Paper
A quantitative exploration of the opportunistic approach to disinflation
A number of observers have advocated recently that the Federal Reserve take an ``opportunistic'' approach to the conduct of monetary policy. A hallmark of this approach is that the central bank focuses on fighting inflation when inflation is high, but focuses on stabilizing output when inflation is low. The implied policy rule is nonlinear. This paper compares the behavior of inflation and output under opportunistic and conventional linear policies. Using stochastic simulations of a small-scale rational expectations model, we study the cost and time required to achieve a given disinflation, ...
Journal Article
Alternative strategies for aggregating prices in the CPI
Working Paper
Interactions between the seasonal and business cycles in production and inventories
This paper shows that in several U.S. manufacturing industries, the seasonal variability of production and inventories varies with the state of the business cycle. We present a simple model which implies that if firms reduce the seasonal variability of their production as the economy strengthens, and they either hold constant or increase the stock of inventories they bring into the high-production seasons of the year, then they must face upward-sloping and convex marginal production cost curves. We conclude that firms in a number of industries face upward-sloping and convex ...
Conference Paper
Four images of Ned Gramlich