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Optimal Interest-Rate Rules: II. Applications

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  • Marc P. Giannoni
  • Michael Woodford

Abstract

In this paper we calculate robustly optimal monetary policy rules for several variants of a simple optimizing model of the monetary transmission mechanism with sticky prices and/or wages. We discuss representations of optimal policy both in terms of interest-rate feedback rules that generalize the well-known Taylor rule,' and in terms of commitment to a target criterion of the kind discussed in familiar proposals for flexible inflation targeting.' Optimal rules, however, require that policy be history-dependent in ways not contemplated by many well-known proposals. We furthermore find that a robustly optimal policy rule is almost inevitably an implicit rule, that requires the central bank to use a structural model to project the economy's evolution under the contemplated policy action. Finally, our numerical examples suggest that optimal rules do not place nearly as much weight on projections of inflation or output many quarters in the future as occurs under the current practice of inflation-forecast targeting central banks.

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Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 9420.

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Date of creation: Jan 2003
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Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:9420

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  1. Clarida, Richard & Galí, Jordi & Gertler, Mark, 1998. "Monetary Policy Rules and Macroeconomic Stability: Evidence and Some Theory," CEPR Discussion Papers 1908, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
  2. William Poole, 1999. "Monetary policy rules?," Speech, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
  3. Svensson, L-E-O, 1996. "Inflation Forecast Targeting : Implementaing and Monitoring Inflation Targets," Papers 615, Stockholm - International Economic Studies.
  4. Andrew Levin & John C. Williams, 2000. "The Performance of Forecast-Based Monetary Policy Rules under Model Uncertainty," Econometric Society World Congress 2000 Contributed Papers 1781, Econometric Society.
  5. Woodford, M., 1999. "Optimal Monetary Policy Inertia.," Papers 666, Stockholm - International Economic Studies.
  6. Nicoletta Batini & Joe Pearlman, 2002. "Too Much Too Soon: Instability and Indeterminacy with Forward-Looking Rules," Computing in Economics and Finance 2002 182, Society for Computational Economics.
  7. Sbordone, Argia, 1998. "Prices and Unit Labor Costs: A New Test of Price Stickiness," Seminar Papers 653, Stockholm University, Institute for International Economic Studies.
  8. Christopher J. Erceg & Dale W. Henderson & Andrew T. Levin, 1999. "Optimal monetary policy with staggered wage and price contracts," International Finance Discussion Papers 640, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
  9. Jean Boivin & Marc Giannoni, 2002. "Has monetary policy become less powerful?," Staff Reports 144, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
  10. Lawrence J. Christiano & Martin Eichenbaum & Charles L. Evans, 2001. "Nominal rigidities and the dynamic effects of a shock to monetary policy," Working Paper Series WP-01-08, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
  11. Amato, Jeffery D. & Laubach, Thomas, 2003. "Rule-of-thumb behaviour and monetary policy," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 47(5), pages 791-831, October.
  12. Julio Rotemberg & Michael Woodford, 1997. "An Optimization-Based Econometric Framework for the Evaluation of Monetary Policy," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1997, Volume 12, pages 297-361 National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  13. Marc P. Giannoni, 2010. "Optimal Interest-Rate Rules in a Forward-Looking Model, and Inflation Stabilization versus Price-Level Stabilization," NBER Working Papers 15986, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  14. Bennett T. McCallum, 2001. "Should Monetary Policy Respond Strongly to Output Gaps?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(2), pages 258-262, May.
  15. Bernanke, Ben S & Woodford, Michael, 1997. "Inflation Forecasts and Monetary Policy," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 29(4), pages 653-84, November.
  16. Jón Steinsson, 2000. "Optimal monetary policy in an economy with inflation persistence," Economics wp11, Department of Economics, Central bank of Iceland.
  17. Robert E. Hall, 1984. "Monetary strategy with an elastic price standard," Proceedings, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, pages 137-167.
  18. Taylor, John B., 1993. "Discretion versus policy rules in practice," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 195-214, December.
  19. Orphanides, Athanasios, 2003. "Monetary policy evaluation with noisy information," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(3), pages 605-631, April.
  20. Frank Smets & Raf Wouters, 2003. "An Estimated Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium Model of the Euro Area," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 1(5), pages 1123-1175, 09.
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