The two central issues in monetary policy are separated by time horizon. The first relates to the short run: what is the appropriate monetary policy across the business cycle? The second relates to the long run: waht is the optimal long-run rate of inflation? This paper explores these classic issues ...

During 2007-2009 the world underwent a deep economic crisis that has been termed the Great Recession where total output is estimated to have decreased 0.6%. This event has had two salient characteristics: it was a financial shock that originated in advanced economies and in the end most of the economies ...

The current international financial crisis is part of a perennial pattern. Today’s events echo earlier big international financial crises that were triggered by events in the U.S. financial system. Examples include the crises of 1857 1893 1907 and 1929–33. This crisis has many similarities to those ...

Arguably no issue in International Macroeconomics exhibits more dissonance between academic research and policy practice than foreign-exchange intervention. The dominant view from academia is that sterilized foreign-exchange (FX) intervention has a tiny if any impact on real variables which makes it ...

Policymakers have long understood that if fiscal policy runs amuck and monetary policy is forced to raise seigniorage revenues big inflations result. Latin American policymakers understand this outcome better than most. This message is implicit in Cagan’s (1956) initial study of hyperinflation and the ...

Increased volatility in the world prices of commodities such as oil and food which are basic imports for many countries has rekindled interest on the question of how monetary policy should best adjust to external commodity price movements. Recent studies have analyzed the issue in the New Keynesian ...

Monetary policy design has experienced major changes over the last twenty years. These changes had their origin in changes in macroeconomic theory, a better understanding of the importance of achieving and maintaining low inflation, and the abandonment of fixed pegs in favor of floating exchange rate ...

In June 2014 the European Central Bank (ECB) decided to cut the rate on its deposit facility (DFR) by 10 basis points (bp) into negative territory an unprecedented move as no major central bank had used negative rates before. This decision was part of a more comprehensive monetary policy easing package ...

To provide further stimulus to the economy in response to a cascade of shocks that roiled financial markets in the latter part of 2008 the U.S. Federal Reserve started to aggressively employ unconventional monetary policy measures after the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) lowered the target for ...

Over the last twenty years, many central banks have adopted increasing standards of transparency in communicating their monetary policy objectives, in particular regarding the explicit definition and quantification of their price stability objective or inflation target. One important benefit of increased ...