Inflation Targeting,Recursive Inattentiveness,and Heterogeneous Beliefs

We consider a monetary authority that provides an explicit inflation target in order to align expectations with the policy objective. However, biased perceptions of the target may arise due to imperfect information flows. We allow agents to revise expectations over time and we model their recursive choice among prediction strategies as an optimization problem under rational inattention. We then investigate whether a simple policy rule can steer the economy toward the targeted equilibrium. Our findings suggest that determinacy under rational expectations may not be sufficient to reach the target. Instead, monetary policy should be fine‐tuned to correct agents' biased beliefs.     

Unstable Inflation Targets

This paper studies long‐run inflation targets and stability in an imperfect information environment. When central banks set an inflation target that is not fully communicated, agents draw inferences about inflation from recent data and remain alert to structural change by forming expectations from a forecasting model that is estimated via discounted least squares. Inflation targets can lead agents' beliefs to depart from rational expectations through two channels. First, implementing a higher inflation target can lead to overshooting. Second, there can be nearly self‐fulfilling inflation, disinflation, or deflation that arises as an endogenous response to shocks. Policy implications for implementing a higher target without deanchoring expectations are discussed.     

Interest‐Rate Pegs in New Keynesian Models

The conventional policy perspective is that lowering the interest rate increases output and inflation in the short run, while maintaining inflation at a higher level requires a higher interest rate in the long run. In contrast, it has been argued that a Neo‐Fisherian policy of setting an interest‐rate peg at a fixed higher level will increase the inflation rate. We show that adaptive learning argues against the Neo‐Fisherian approach. Pegging the interest rate at a higher level will induce instability and most likely lead to falling inflation and output over time. Eventually, this would precipitate a change of policy.     

What Asset Prices Should Be Targeted by a Central Bank?

This paper investigates the monetary policy design for restoring equilibrium determinacy. Our interests are whether a central bank should respond to asset price fluctuations, and if so, what asset prices should be targeted. We show that a monetary policy response to the price of a productive tangible asset (capital price) is helpful for equilibrium determinacy, while that to the price of an intangible asset that reflects a firm's profit (share prices) is a source of equilibrium indeterminacy. This result comes from the two assets' prices moving in opposite directions in response to a permanent increase in inflation.     

How to Solve the Price Puzzle? A Meta‐Analysis

The short‐run increase in prices following an unexpected tightening of monetary policy constitutes a puzzle frequently reported in empirical studies. Yet the puzzle is easy to explain away when all published models are quantitatively reviewed. We collect and examine about 1,000 point estimates of impulse responses from 70 articles that use vector autoregressions to study monetary transmission in various countries. We find that the puzzle is created by model misspecifications: especially by the omission of commodity prices, neglect of potential output, and reliance on recursive identification. Our results also suggest that the strength of monetary policy depends on the country’s openness, phase of the economic cycle, and degree of central bank independence.     

When Preferences for a Stable Interest Rate Become Self‐Defeating

Monetary policymakers often seem to have preferences for a stable interest rate, in addition to stable inflation and output. In this paper, we investigate the implications of having an interest rate level term in the loss function when the policymaker lacks commitment technology. We show that such preferences may become self‐defeating, in the sense that they generate a less stable interest rate than in the case without preferences for interest rate stability.     

Optimal Monetary and Fiscal Policy with a Zero Bound on Nominal Interest Rates

I characterize optimal monetary and fiscal policy in a stochastic New Keynesian model when nominal interest rates may occasionally hit the zero lower bound. The benevolent policymaker controls the short‐term nominal interest rate and the level of government spending. Under discretionary policy, accounting for fiscal stabilization policy eliminates to a large extent the welfare losses associated with the presence of the zero bound. Under commitment, the gains associated with the use of the fiscal policy tool remain modest, even though fiscal stabilization policy is part of the optimal policy mix.     

Heterogeneous Expectations,Optimal Monetary Policy,and the Merit of Policy Inertia

The design and analysis of optimal monetary policy is usually guided by the paradigm of homogeneous rational expectations. Instead, we examine the dynamic consequences of design and implementation strategies, when the actual economy features expectational heterogeneity. Agents have either rational or adaptive expectations. Consequently, the central bank's ability to achieve price stability under heterogeneous expectations depends on its objective and implementation strategy. An expectations‐based reaction function, which appropriately conditions on private sector expectations, performs exceptionally well. However, once the objective introduces policy inertia, popular strategies have similar determinacy properties, but they are less operational. This finding calls for new implementation strategies under interest rate stabilization.     

Fiscal Sustainability in a New Keynesian Model

Recent work on optimal monetary and fiscal policy in New Keynesian models suggests that it is optimal to allow steady‐state debt to follow a random walk. In this paper we consider the nature of the time inconsistency involved in such a policy and its implication for discretionary policymaking. We show that governments are tempted, given inflationary expectations, to utilize their monetary and fiscal instruments in the initial period to change the ultimate debt burden they need to service. We demonstrate that this temptation is only eliminated if following shocks, the new steady‐state debt is equal to the original (efficient) debt level even though there is no explicit debt target in the government's objective function. Analytically and in a series of numerical simulations we show which instrument is used to stabilize the debt depends crucially on the degree of nominal inertia and the size of the debt stock. We also show that the welfare consequences of introducing debt are negligible for precommitment policies, but can be significant for discretionary policy. Finally, we assess the credibility of commitment policy by considering a quasi‐commitment policy, which allows for different probabilities of reneging on past promises.     

Greenspan's Conundrum and the Fed's Ability to Affect Long‐Term Yields

In February 2005 Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan noticed that the 10‐year Treasury yields failed to increase despite a 150‐basis‐point increase in the federal funds rate and called it a “conundrum.” This paper investigates the historical relationship between the 10‐year Treasury yield and the federal funds rate and finds that the relationship changed dramatically in the late 1980s, well in advance of Greenspan's observation. The paper evaluates three competing hypotheses for the change. The evidence from a variety of sources supports the conclusion that the most plausible explanation is that the change occurred because the FOMC began using the federal funds rate as a policy instrument.     

The Risk‐Taking Channel of Monetary Policy in the U.S.: Evidence from Corporate Loan Data

To study the presence of a risk‐taking channel in the U.S., we build a comprehensive data set from the syndicated corporate loan market and measure monetary policy using different measures, most notably Taylor (1993) and Romer and Romer (2004) residuals. We identify a negative relation between monetary policy rates and bank risk‐taking, especially in the run up to the 2007 financial crisis. However, this effect is purely supply‐side driven only when using Taylor residuals and an ex ante measure of bank risk‐taking. Our results highlight the sensitivity of the potency of the risk‐taking channel to the measures of monetary policy innovations.     

Changes in the Federal Reserve Communication Strategy: A Structural Investigation

This paper structurally investigates the changes in the Fed's communication strategy since the mid‐1990s through the lens of anticipated and unanticipated disturbances to a Taylor rule. The anticipated disturbances are identified using Treasury bond yield data in estimating a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model with a term structure of interest rates. Our estimation results show that the Fed's decisions were unanticipated for market participants until 1999, but thereafter a larger portion of its future policy actions tended to be communicated in advance. We also find that the relative contribution of the anticipated monetary policy disturbances to macroeconomic fluctuations became larger after 1999. The bond yield data is indispensable to these results, since it contains crucial information on an expected future path of the federal funds rate.     

Voluntary Reserve Targets

We study monetary policy implementation through an operating regime involving voluntary reserve targets (VRTs). Operating regimes based on reserve requirements may lead to a collapse in interbank trade, as they have since the financial crisis. We show that, no matter the abundance of reserves, VRTs encourage market activity and support the central bank's control over interest rates. We consider (i) the impact of anticipated and unanticipated liquidity injections by the central bank on market outcomes and (ii) a comparison with the implementation framework currently adopted by the Federal Reserve. Overall, a VRT framework may provide several advantages over other frameworks.     

Asymmetric Preferences and the Stability Problem for Optimal Monetary Policy Rules

This paper evaluates the stability properties of optimal monetary policy rules when professionals under adaptive learning have asymmetric preferences. The asymmetric preferences require volatility estimates in real time. An expectations‐based rule can stabilize the economy, while a fundamentals‐based rule leads to instability.