This paper evaluates alternative rules by which the Fed may set interest rates using the small model of the U.S. economy estimated in Rotemberg and Woodford (1997). Our main substantive finding is that low and stable inflation together with stable interest rates can be achieved by letting the funds rate respond positively to inflation while also responding, with a coefficient bigger than one, to the lagged funds rate itself. A rule in which the interest rate is set in this extremely simple way does almost as well as a more complicated rule which is optimal in our setting, in the sense of maximizing expected utility to the representative household. Furthermore, when the funds rate responds to inflation only with a delay, due to delay in the availability of inflation data, performance under the rule is only slightly reduced.
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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number
6618.
Length: Date of creation: Jun 1998 Date of revision: Publication status: published as Monetary Policy Rules, Taylor, J.B., ed., Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1999. Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:6618
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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
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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.:
Robert E. Hall & N. Gregory Mankiw, 1994.
"Nominal Income Targeting,"
NBER Chapters,
in: Monetary Policy, pages 71-94
National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
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Other versions:
Robert J. Shiller, 1997.
"Why Do People Dislike Inflation?,"
NBER Chapters,
in: Reducing Inflation: Motivation and Strategy, pages 13-70
National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
[Downloadable!]
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