Endogenous Growth and Real Effects of Monetary Policy: R&D and Physical Capital Complementarities

We study the real long-run effects of the structural stance of monetary policy and of inflation, in the context of a monetary growth model where R&D is complemented with physical capital accumulation. We look into the effects on a set of real macroeconomic variables that have been of interest to policymakers—the economic growth rate, real interest rate, physical investment rate, capital-to-labor ratio, R&D intensity, and velocity of money. These variables have been previously analyzed from the perspective of different, separated, strands of the theoretical and empirical literature. Additionally, we analyze the long-run relationship between inflation and both the effectiveness of real industrial-policy shocks and the market structure, assessed namely by average firm size. We present novel cross-country evidence on the empirical relationship between the latter and long-run inflation.     

Money and the Welfare Cost of Inflation in an R&D Growth Model

This study analyzes the effects of inflation on R&D and innovation‐driven growth. In the theoretical section, we incorporate money demand into a quality‐ladder model with elastic labor supply and derive the following result. If the elasticity of substitution between consumption and the real money balance is less (greater) than unity, then R&D and the growth rate of output would be decreasing (increasing) in the growth rate of money supply. Quantitatively, decreasing inflation in the U.S. to achieve price stability improves social welfare, and the welfare gain is equivalent to at least 0.5% of annual consumption. In the empirical section, we use cross‐country data to establish a negative and statistically significant relationship between inflation and R&D.     

Monetary Policy Rules Work and Discretion Doesn’t: A Tale of Two Eras

This lecture examines monetary policy during the past three decades. It documents two contrasting eras: first a Rules‐Based Era from 1985 to 2003 and second an Ad Hoc Era from 2003 to the present. During the Rules‐Based Era, monetary policy, in broad terms, followed a predictable systemic approach, and economic performance was generally good. During the Ad Hoc Era, monetary policy is best described as a “discretion of authorities” approach, and economic performance was decidedly poor. By considering alternative explanations of this policy–performance correlation and examining corroborating evidence, the lecture concludes that rules‐based policies have clear advantages over discretion.     

Monetary Policy in a Schumpeterian Growth Model with Vertical R&D Sectors

We explore the growth and welfare effects of monetary policy in a Schumpeterian economy with cash-in-advance (CIA)-constrained research and development (R&D) investment in both the upstream and downstream sectors. We show that the nominal interest rate can have an inverted-U relation with economic growth due to its effects on labor allocations between manufacturing and R&D and between the R&D sectors. Furthermore, aggregate R&D overinvestment is generally sufficient but not necessary for the Friedman rule of zero nominal interest rates to be suboptimal. Calibrated using data from U.S. manufacturing firms, our model features a positive welfare-maximizing nominal interest rate despite aggregate R&D underinvestment.     

从通货膨胀目标制看货币政策透明度建设

近年来，通货膨胀目标制已成为一种新的货币政策框架，而通货膨胀目标制的显著优点在于能通过增强货币政策的透明度，提高政策的可信度，进而提高货币政策的有效性。提高货币政策的透明度正在成为一种国际趋势。因此．本文通过借鉴实施通货膨胀目标制的西方发达国家的成功经验，探讨我国应如何加强货币政策透明度的建设，提高货币政策有效性。     

Inflation,Employment, and Monetary Policy: Objectives and Outcomes in the UK and U.S. Compared

This paper explores how sensitive is monetary policy to the precise preferences of the central bank over inflation and economic activity. It does so in order to address a puzzle—which is that the U.S. Fed and the Bank of England appear to have quite different objectives and yet have adopted strikingly similar policies in recent years. I use a calibrated model to assess how policy might be sensitive to attaching different weights to inflation, output, and the output gap in central bank objectives. I find that a wide range of weights can give rise to rather similar monetary policies.     

Inflation and Innovation in a Schumpeterian Economy with North–South Technology Transfer

This study analyzes how inflation affects innovation and international technology transfer via cash‐in‐advance constraints on R&D. We consider a North–South quality‐ladder model that features innovative Northern R&D and adaptive Southern R&D. We find that higher Southern inflation causes a permanent decrease in technology transfer, a permanent increase in the North–South wage gap, and a temporary decrease in the Northern innovation rate. Higher Northern inflation causes a temporary decrease in the Northern innovation rate, a permanent decrease in the North–South wage gap, and ambiguous effects on technology transfer. Finally, we calibrate the model to China–U.S. data to perform a quantitative analysis.     

从紧货币政策下的区域经济发展：青海案例

本文深入分析了西部经济欠发达地区——青海省十五以来经济发展的特点和主要矛盾,针对货币政策由稳健转入从紧,提出了相关应对措施。     

Optimal Monetary Policy and Transparency under Informational Frictions

This paper examines the optimal monetary policy and central bank transparency in an economy where firms set prices under informational frictions. The economy is subject to two types of shocks determining the efficient output level and firms' desired markups. To minimize the welfare‐reducing output gap and price dispersion between firms, the central bank controls firms' incentives and expectations by using a monetary instrument and disclosing information on the realized shocks. This paper shows that an optimal policy comprises the disclosure of a linear combination of the two shocks and the adjustment of monetary instruments contingent on the disclosed information.     

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.     

Monetary Policy and Price Responsiveness to Aggregate Shocks under Rational Inattention

This paper studies a general equilibrium model that is consistent with recent empirical evidence showing that the U.S. price level and inflation are much more responsive to aggregate technology shocks than to monetary policy shocks. Specifically, we show that the fact that aggregate technology shocks are more volatile than monetary policy shocks induces firms to pay more attention to the former than to the latter. However, most important, this work adds to the literature by analytically showing how monetary policy feedback rules affect the incentives faced by firms in allocating attention. A policy rule responding more actively to inflation fluctuations induces firms to pay relatively more attention to more volatile shocks, helping to rationalize the observed behavior of prices in response to technology and monetary policy shocks.     

Monetary Policy and the Natural Rate of Interest

It is most important for monetary policy to track the natural rate of interest when interest rates take large and sustained swings away from their long‐run equilibrium values. Here, we study two models: a standard New Keynesian model and one in which government bonds provide liquidity. Policy rules that cannot track the natural rate perform poorly in both models, but are especially bad in the second because of sustained movements in the natural rate induced by fiscal shocks. First difference rules, on the other hand, do surprisingly well. When model uncertainty is taken into account, the dominance of the first difference rule is even more pronounced.     

Optimal Fiscal and Monetary Policy in Customer Markets

We present a model in which some goods trade in “customer markets” and advertising facilitates long‐lived relationships. We estimate the model on U.S. data and find a large congestion externality in the pricing of customer market goods. This motivates the analysis of optimal policy. Under a complete set of taxes, fiscal policy eliminates the externalities with large adjustments in tax rates on customer markets goods, while labor tax volatility remains low. Constraining the instruments to the interest rate and labor tax, the optimal labor tax displays large and procyclical fluctuations, but monetary policy is little changed compared to a model with no customer markets.     

Imperfect Common Knowledge, Staggered Price Setting, and the Effects of Monetary Policy

This paper studies the consequences of a lack of common knowledge in the transmission of monetary policy by integrating the Woodford (2003a) imperfect common knowledge model with Taylor–Calvo staggered price-setting models. The average price set by monopolistically competitive firms depends on their higher-order expectations about not only the current state of the economy but also about the states in the future periods in which prices are to be fixed. This integrated model provides a plausible explanation for the observed effects of monetary policy: it shows analytically how price adjustments are delayed and how the response of output to monetary disturbances is amplified.     

Notes on the Underground: Monetary Policy in Resource‐Rich Economies

The central bank of a commodity‐exporting small open economy faces the traditional trade‐off between domestic inflation and output gap. The commodity sector introduces a terms‐of‐trade inefficiency that gives rise to an endogenous cost‐push shock, changes the target level for output, reduces the slope of the Phillips curve, and increases the importance of stabilizing the output gap. Optimal monetary policy calls for a reduction of the interest rate following a drop in the oil price. In contrast, a central bank with a mandate to stabilize consumer price inflation raises interest rates to limit the inflationary impact of an exchange rate depreciation.     

中国核心通货膨胀率的度量及其货币政策涵义

基于包含实际总产出、货币供给M2和CPI的向量自回归模型(VAR),将CPI分解为长期变动趋势和短期波动项。将长期趋势部分定义为核心通货膨胀率。运用1994～2009年中国季度数据进行实证检验,核心通胀率与CPI有长期均衡关系,主导CPI的长期变动趋势,是CPI的前导变量,能够为预测CPI提供有用信息,对为中央银行判断总体通货膨胀走势、制定及时有效的货币政策有所启示。     

A Welfare-Based Analysis of International Monetary Policy Spillovers at the Zero Lower Bound

We study the welfare effects of international monetary policy spillovers at the zero lower bound, focusing on the effects of forward guidance in a large economy (“foreign”) on its smaller trading partner (“home”) in scenarios motivated by the global financial crisis. We find that foreign forward guidance has an overall prosper-thy-neighbor effect on the home economy as long as it increases foreign welfare. This finding holds under alternative assumptions about exchange rate pass-through or the degree of international financial integration. However, foreign forward guidance may worsen the trade-off between the stabilization objectives of home monetary policy.     

U.S. Monetary Regimes and Optimal Monetary Policy in the Euro Area

Monetary policy in the United States has been documented to have switched from reacting weakly to inflation fluctuations during the 1970s, to fighting inflation aggressively from the early 1980s onward. In this paper, I analyze the impact of the U.S. monetary policy regime switches on the Eurozone. I construct a New Keynesian two‐country model where foreign (U.S.) monetary policy switches regimes over time. I estimate the model for the U.S. and the Euro Area using quarterly data and find that the United States has switched between those two regimes, in line with existing evidence. I show that foreign regime switches affect home (Eurozone) inflation and output volatility and their responses to shocks, substantially, as long as the home central bank commits to a time‐invariant interest rate rule reacting to domestic conditions only. Optimal policy in the home country instead requires that the home central bank reacts strongly to domestic producer‐price inflation and to international variables, such as imported goods relative prices. In fact, I show that currency misalignments and relative prices play a crucial role in the transmission of foreign monetary policy regime switches internationally. Interestingly, I show that only marginal gains arise for the Euro Area when the European Central Bank (ECB) adjusts its policy according to the monetary regime in the United States. Thus, a simple time‐invariant monetary policy rule with a strong reaction to Producer Price Index (PPI) inflation and relative prices is enough to counteract the effects of monetary policy switches in the United States.     

The Effectiveness of Unconventional Monetary Policy at the Zero Lower Bound: A Cross‐Country Analysis

This paper assesses the macroeconomic effects of unconventional monetary policies by estimating a panel vector autoregression (VAR) with monthly data from eight advanced economies over a sample spanning the period since the onset of the global financial crisis. It finds that an exogenous increase in central bank balance sheets at the zero lower bound leads to a temporary rise in economic activity and consumer prices. The estimated output effects turn out to be qualitatively similar to the ones found in the literature on the effects of conventional monetary policy, while the impact on the price level is weaker and less persistent. Individual country results suggest that there are no major differences in the macroeconomic effects of unconventional monetary policies across countries, despite the heterogeneity of the measures that were taken.