A. Hakan Kara (Research and Monetary Policy Department Central Bank of Turkey)
Abstract
In the standard forward-looking models of the recent literature, theoretical optimal monetary policy rules imply much higher inertia of interest rates than estimated historical policy rules. Motivated by the observation that theoretical policy rules often assume perfect commitment on the part of the monetary authority, this study formulates the monetary policy behavior with a continuum from discretion to full commitment and, using this setup, seeks to match the theory with evidence. It is shown that optimal instrument rules under imperfect commitment exhibit less inertia on the policy instrument; the degree of inertia declines as the policy moves from full commitment to discretion. Therefore, under the assumption that the monetary authorities operate somewhere in between discretion and commitment, historically observed policy behavior can be reconciled with the optimal policy rules - even in a purely forward-looking framework. As a by-product, we propose a method to measure the stance of monetary policy from the perspective of discretion versus commitment. To test our proposal, we estimate a structural monetary policy rule for the Federal Reserve, which nests discretion and commitment as special cases. Empirical results suggest that recent practice of monetary policy has been closer to commitment than the policy pursued in the 1970s.
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Find related papers by JEL classification: E52 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Monetary Policy E58 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Central Banks and Their Policies
References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
Roberds, William, 1987.
"Models of Policy under Stochastic Replanning,"
International Economic Review,
Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 28(3), pages 731-55, October.
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