Faced with real and nominal shocks, what should a benevolent central bank do, fix the money growth rate or target the inflation rate? In this paper, we make a first attempt at studying the optimal choice of monetary policy instruments in a micro-founded model of money. Specifically, we produce an overlapping generations economy in which limited communication and stochastic relocation creates an endogenous transactions role for fiat money. We find that when the shocks are real, welfare is higher under money growth targeting; when the shocks are nominal and not large, welfare is higher under inflation rate targeting. While under inflation rate targeting, it is always optimal to pursue an expansionary policy, it is never optimal to do so under money growth targeting.
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Paper provided by Iowa State University, Department of Economics in its series Staff General Research Papers with number
12355.
Length: Date of creation: 10 May 2005 Date of revision: Publication status: Published in Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, April 2008, Vol. 32, No. 4, pp. 1273-1311. Handle: RePEc:isu:genres:12355
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Aubhik Khan & Robert G. King & Alexander L. Wolman, 2003.
"Optimal Monetary Policy,"
Review of Economic Studies,
Blackwell Publishing, vol. 70(4), pages 825-860, October.
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Other versions:
Aubhik Khan & Robert King & Alexander L. Wolman, 2002.
"Optimal monetary policy,"
Working Papers
02-19, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.
[Downloadable!]
Aubhik Khan & Robert G. King & Alexander L. Wolman, 2000.
"Optimal monetary policy,"
Working Paper
00-10, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond.
[Downloadable!]
Aubhik Khan & Robert G. King & Alexander L. Wolman, 2001.
"Optimal monetary policy,"
Working Papers
01-5, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.
[Downloadable!]
Aubhik Khan & Robert G. King & Alexander L. Wolman, 2002.
"Optimal Monetary Policy,"
NBER Working Papers
9402, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
[Downloadable!] (restricted)