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Briefing
Trade-offs in Fulfilling the Fed’s Dual Mandate
This article discusses the trade-offs and impacts of inflationary environments given the dual mandate of the Federal Reserve. High inflation creates pricing distortions and leads to a tax on liquidity. Furthermore, it has direct redistributive impacts of inflation on wages, portfolios and contracts that are preset in dollar terms. The analysis concludes that while inflationary trade-offs are complex, keeping expectations anchored is a paramount objective for the Fed, since unanchored expectations make all the other trade-offs harder to navigate.
Working Paper
Continuity and Change in the Federal Reserve’s Perspective on Price Stability
By examining statements made by the Federal Reserve leadership since the early 1950s, we establish that there has been considerable continuity in policymakers’ perceptions of the benefits of price stability. Policymakers have consistently contended that deviations from price stability give rise to greater cyclical instability, and they have also frequently suggested that potential output is significantly lowered by inflation. The recurrent support for price stability that comes through in these statements implies that it is invalid to take periods in the U.S. record of deviations from price ...
Working Paper
Doves for the Rich, Hawks for the Poor? Distributional Consequences of Systematic Monetary Policy
We build a New Keynesian business-cycle model with rich household heterogeneity. In the model, systematic monetary stabilization policy affects the distribution of income, income risks, and the demand for funds and supply of assets: the demand, because matching frictions render idiosyncratic labor-market risk endogenous; the supply, because markups, adjustment costs, and the tax system mean that the average profitability of firms is endogenous. Disagreement about systematic monetary stabilization policy is pronounced. The wealth-rich or retired tend to favor inflation targeting. The ...