IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pri/cepsud/114.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Understanding the Greenspan Standard

Author

Listed:
  • Alan S. Blinder

    (Princeton University)

  • Ricardo Reis

    (Princeton University)

Abstract

Alan Greenspan was sworn in as Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System almost exactly 18 years ago. At the time, the Reagan administration was being rocked by the Iran-contra scandal. The Berlin Wall was standing tall while, in the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev had just presented proposals for perestroika. The stock market had not crashed since 1929 and, probably by coincidence, Prozac had just been released on the market. The New York Mets, having won the 1986 World Series, were the reigning champions of major league baseball. A lot can change in 18 years.

Suggested Citation

  • Alan S. Blinder & Ricardo Reis, 2005. "Understanding the Greenspan Standard," Working Papers 88, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Center for Economic Policy Studies..
    • Handle: RePEc:pri:cepsud:114
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://gceps.princeton.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/114blinderreis.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lars E O Svensson, 2005. "Monetary Policy with Judgment: Forecast Targeting," International Journal of Central Banking, International Journal of Central Banking, vol. 1(1), May.
    2. Susan Athey & Andrew Atkeson & Patrick J. Kehoe, 2005. "The Optimal Degree of Discretion in Monetary Policy," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 73(5), pages 1431-1475, September.
    3. Mccallum, Bennet T., 1988. "Robustness properties of a rule for monetary policy," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 29(1), pages 173-203, January.
    4. Avinash Dixit & Luisa Lambertini, 2003. "Interactions of Commitment and Discretion in Monetary and Fiscal Policies," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(5), pages 1522-1542, December.
    5. Jushan Bai & Pierre Perron, 1998. "Estimating and Testing Linear Models with Multiple Structural Changes," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 66(1), pages 47-78, January.
    6. Orphanides, Athanasios & Williams, John C., 2007. "Robust monetary policy with imperfect knowledge," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(5), pages 1406-1435, July.
    7. Clare Lombardelli & James Proudman & James Talbot, 2005. "Committees Versus Individuals: An Experimental Analysis of Monetary Policy Decision-Making," International Journal of Central Banking, International Journal of Central Banking, vol. 1(1), May.
    8. Athanasios Orphanides & John C. Williams, 2006. "Monetary Policy with Imperfect Knowledge," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 4(2-3), pages 366-375, 04-05.
    9. Michael Woodford, 1998. "Doing Without Money: Controlling Inflation in a Post-Monetary World," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 1(1), pages 173-219, January.
    10. Radner, Roy & Rothschild, Michael, 1975. "On the allocation of effort," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 10(3), pages 358-376, June.
    11. King, Mervyn, 1997. "Changes in UK monetary policy: Rules and discretion in practice," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 81-97, June.
    12. Svensson, Lars E. O., 1997. "Inflation forecast targeting: Implementing and monitoring inflation targets," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 41(6), pages 1111-1146, June.
    13. Barro, Robert J & Gordon, David B, 1983. "A Positive Theory of Monetary Policy in a Natural Rate Model," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 91(4), pages 589-610, August.
    14. Christina D. Romer & David H. Romer, 1997. "Reducing Inflation: Motivation and Strategy," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number rome97-1.
    15. Laurence Ball & Robert Moffitt, 2001. "Productivity Growth and the Phillips Curve," NBER Working Papers 8421, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Cecchetti, Stephen G. & Kashyap, Anil K, 1996. "International cycles," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 40(2), pages 331-360, February.
    17. N. Gregory Mankiw & Ricardo Reis, 2003. "What Measure of Inflation Should a Central Bank Target?," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 1(5), pages 1058-1086, September.
    18. Hamid Mehran & Joseph Tracy, 2001. "The effect of employee stock options on the evolution of compensation in the 1990s," Economic Policy Review, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, issue Dec, pages 17-34.
    19. Richard Clarida & Jordi Galí & Mark Gertler, 2000. "Monetary Policy Rules and Macroeconomic Stability: Evidence and Some Theory," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 115(1), pages 147-180.
    20. Alexei Onatski & Noah Williams, 2003. "Modeling Model Uncertainty," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 1(5), pages 1087-1122, September.
    21. Lars E.O. Svensson & Robert J. Tetlow, 2005. "Optimal Policy Projections," International Journal of Central Banking, International Journal of Central Banking, vol. 1(3), December.
    22. Alan Greenspan, 2004. "Risk and Uncertainty in Monetary Policy," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(2), pages 33-40, May.
    23. Lars E.O. Svensson, 2003. "Optimal Policy with Low-Probability Extreme Events," NBER Working Papers 10196, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    24. Hamid Mehran & Joseph Tracy, 2001. "The Impact of Employee Stock Options on the Evolution of Compensation in the 1990s," NBER Working Papers 8353, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    25. Neiss, Katharine S. & Nelson, Edward, 2003. "The Real-Interest-Rate Gap As An Inflation Indicator," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 7(2), pages 239-262, April.
    26. Donald L. Kohn & Brian P. Sack, 2003. "Central bank talk: does it matter and why?," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2003-55, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    27. Susan Athey & Andrew Atkeson & Patrick J. Kehoe, 2003. "The optimal degree of monetary policy discretion," Proceedings, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    28. Alan S. Blinder, 1982. "Issues in the Coordination of Monetary and Fiscal Policy," NBER Working Papers 0982, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    29. Noah Williams & Lars E.O. Svensson, 2005. "Monetary Policy with Model Uncertainty: Distribution Forecast Targeting," Computing in Economics and Finance 2005 108, Society for Computational Economics.
    30. Laurence Ball & Robert R. Tchaidze, 2002. "The Fed and the New Economy," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(2), pages 108-114, May.
    31. Gilchrist, Simon & Leahy, John V., 2002. "Monetary policy and asset prices," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(1), pages 75-97, January.
    32. Orphanides, Athanasios, 2003. "The quest for prosperity without inflation," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(3), pages 633-663, April.
    33. Julio J. 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.
    34. Martin Feldstein, 2013. "Panel discussion," NBER Chapters, in: Globalization in an Age of Crisis: Multilateral Economic Cooperation in the Twenty-First Century, pages 389-391, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    35. Alan S. Blinder, 2000. "Central-Bank Credibility: Why Do We Care? How Do We Build It?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(5), pages 1421-1431, December.
    36. Ben S. Bernanke & Julio J. Rotemberg (ed.), 1997. "NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1997," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 026252242x, April.
    37. William Poole, 2003. "Fed transparency: how, not whether," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, vol. 85(Nov), pages 1-8.
    38. James H. Stock & Mark W. Watson, 2003. "Has the business cycle changed?," Proceedings - Economic Policy Symposium - Jackson Hole, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, pages 9-56.
    39. Richard H. Clarida & Mark Gertler, 1997. "How the Bundesbank Conducts Monetary Policy," NBER Chapters, in: Reducing Inflation: Motivation and Strategy, pages 363-412, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    40. Peter Isard & Douglas Laxton & Ann-Charlotte Eliasson, 1999. "Simple Monetary Policy Rules Under Model Uncertainty," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 6(4), pages 537-577, November.
    41. Andrew T.. Levin & Volker Wieland & John Williams, 1999. "Robustness of Simple Monetary Policy Rules under Model Uncertainty," NBER Chapters, in: Monetary Policy Rules, pages 263-318, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    42. Glenn D. Rudebusch, 2006. "Monetary Policy Inertia: Fact or Fiction?," International Journal of Central Banking, International Journal of Central Banking, vol. 2(4), December.
    43. Professor Lars E O Svensson, 2001. "Independent review of the operation of monetary policy in New Zealand," Reserve Bank of New Zealand Bulletin, Reserve Bank of New Zealand, vol. 64, March.
    44. John B. Taylor, 1999. "Monetary Policy Rules," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number tayl99-1.
    45. Olivier Blanchard & John Simon, 2001. "The Long and Large Decline in U.S. Output Volatility," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 32(1), pages 135-174.
    46. Christopher A. Sims & Tao Zha, 2006. "Were There Regime Switches in U.S. Monetary Policy?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(1), pages 54-81, March.
    47. Woodford Michael, 2002. "Inflation Stabilization and Welfare," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 2(1), pages 1-53, February.
    48. Michael Woodford, 2004. "Inflation targeting and optimal monetary policy," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, vol. 86(Jul), pages 15-42.
    49. Matthew B. Canzoneri & Robert E. Cumby & Behzad T. Diba, 2002. "Should the European Central Bank and the Federal Reserve be concerned about fiscal policy?," Proceedings - Economic Policy Symposium - Jackson Hole, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, pages 333-389.
    50. Douglas O. Staiger & James H. Stock & Mark W. Watson, 1997. "How Precise Are Estimates of the Natural Rate of Unemployment?," NBER Chapters, in: Reducing Inflation: Motivation and Strategy, pages 195-246, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    51. Andrews, Donald W K, 1993. "Tests for Parameter Instability and Structural Change with Unknown Change Point," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 61(4), pages 821-856, July.
    52. Blinder, Alan S, 1981. "Monetary Accommodation of Supply Shocks under Rational Expectations," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 13(4), pages 425-438, November.
    53. Robert E. Hall, 2005. "Separating the business cycle from other economic fluctuations," Proceedings - Economic Policy Symposium - Jackson Hole, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, issue Aug, pages 133-179.
    54. Ben S. Bernanke & Mark Gertler, 1999. "Monetary policy and asset price volatility," Proceedings - Economic Policy Symposium - Jackson Hole, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, pages 77-128.
    55. Gary Chamberlain, 2000. "Econometric applications of maxmin expected utility," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 15(6), pages 625-644.
    56. Reis Ricardo, 2003. "Where Is the Natural Rate? Rational Policy Mistakes and Persistent Deviations of Inflation from Target," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 3(1), pages 1-40, September.
    57. Christopher A. Sims & Tao Zha, 2006. "Were There Regime Switches in U.S. Monetary Policy?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(1), pages 54-81, March.
    58. repec:pri:cepsud:110sims is not listed on IDEAS
    59. Douglas Staiger & James H. Stock & Mark W. Watson, 1997. "The NAIRU, Unemployment and Monetary Policy," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 11(1), pages 33-49, Winter.
    60. anonymous, 2003. "Monetary policy and uncertainty : adapting to a changing economy -a symposium, Jackson Hole, Wyoming, August 28-30, 2003," Proceedings - Economic Policy Symposium - Jackson Hole, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City.
    61. Blinder, Alan S & Morgan, John, 2005. "Are Two Heads Better than One? Monetary Policy by Committee," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 37(5), pages 789-811, October.
    62. Thomas Laubach & John C. Williams, 2003. "Measuring the Natural Rate of Interest," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 85(4), pages 1063-1070, November.
    63. repec:cup:macdyn:v:7:y:2003:i:2:p:239-62 is not listed on IDEAS
    64. Allen Sinai, 2004. "Preemption, Changing Structure, and U. S. Monetary Policy," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(2), pages 49-52, May.
    65. Fischer, Stanley, 1990. "Rules versus discretion in monetary policy," Handbook of Monetary Economics, in: B. M. Friedman & F. H. Hahn (ed.), Handbook of Monetary Economics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 21, pages 1155-1184, Elsevier.
    66. 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.
    67. Alan Greenspan, 1989. "Statement by Alan Greenspan," Journal of Applied Corporate Finance, Morgan Stanley, vol. 2(1), pages 31-34, March.
    68. Kydland, Finn E & Prescott, Edward C, 1977. "Rules Rather Than Discretion: The Inconsistency of Optimal Plans," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 85(3), pages 473-491, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. repec:pri:cepsud:114blinderreis is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Alan S. Blinder & Ricardo Reis, 2005. "Understanding the Greenspan standard," Proceedings - Economic Policy Symposium - Jackson Hole, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, issue Aug, pages 11-96.
    3. Alan S. Blinder, 2006. "Monetary Policy Today: Sixteen Questions and about Twelve Answers," Working Papers 73, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Center for Economic Policy Studies..
    4. repec:pri:cepsud:129blinder is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Alan S. Blinder, 2006. "Monetary Policy Today: Sixteen Questions and about Twelve Answers," Working Papers 73, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Center for Economic Policy Studies..
    6. Michael Paetz, 2007. "Robust Control and Persistence in the New Keynesian Economy," Quantitative Macroeconomics Working Papers 20711, Hamburg University, Department of Economics.
    7. Levin, Andrew T. & Williams, John C., 2003. "Robust monetary policy with competing reference models," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(5), pages 945-975, July.
    8. Volker Wieland, "undated". "Monetary Policy and Uncertainty about the Natural Unemployment Rate," Computing in Economics and Finance 1997 11, Society for Computational Economics.
    9. Taylor, John B. & Williams, John C., 2010. "Simple and Robust Rules for Monetary Policy," Handbook of Monetary Economics, in: Benjamin M. Friedman & Michael Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Monetary Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 15, pages 829-859, Elsevier.
    10. Athanasios Orphanides & John C. Williams, 2002. "Robust Monetary Policy Rules with Unknown Natural Rates," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 33(2), pages 63-146.
    11. van der Ploeg, Frederick, 2009. "Prudent monetary policy and prediction of the output gap," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 31(2), pages 217-230, June.
    12. Glenn D. Rudebusch, 2002. "Assessing Nominal Income Rules for Monetary Policy with Model and Data Uncertainty," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 112(479), pages 402-432, April.
    13. Lars E. O. Svensson & Michael Woodford, 2004. "Implementing Optimal Policy through Inflation-Forecast Targeting," NBER Chapters, in: The Inflation-Targeting Debate, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Wasim Shahid Malik & Ather Maqsood Ahmed, 2010. "Taylor Rule and the Macroeconomic Performance in Pakistan," The Pakistan Development Review, Pakistan Institute of Development Economics, vol. 49(1), pages 37-56.
    15. van der Ploeg, Frederick, 2004. "Prudent Monetary Policy: Applications of Cautious LQG Control and Prediction," CEPR Discussion Papers 4222, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    16. Travaglini, Guido, 2007. "The U.S. Dynamic Taylor Rule With Multiple Breaks, 1984-2001," MPRA Paper 3419, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 15 Jun 2007.
    17. Orphanides, Athanasios, 2003. "The quest for prosperity without inflation," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(3), pages 633-663, April.
    18. Fernando Alexandre & Pedro Bação & Vasco Gabriel, 2008. "Taylor-type rules versus optimal policy in a Markov-switching economy," GEMF Working Papers 2008-02, GEMF, Faculty of Economics, University of Coimbra.
    19. Frederick van der Ploeg, 2007. "Prudent Monetary Policy and Cautious Prediction of the Output Gap," Economics Working Papers ECO2007/40, European University Institute.
    20. Lars E. O. Svensson, 2003. "What Is Wrong with Taylor Rules? Using Judgment in Monetary Policy through Targeting Rules," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 41(2), pages 426-477, June.
    21. Jean Boivin & Marc P. Giannoni, 2006. "Has Monetary Policy Become More Effective?," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 88(3), pages 445-462, August.
    22. Svensson, Lars E. O., 1999. "Inflation targeting as a monetary policy rule," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(3), pages 607-654, June.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    United States;

    JEL classification:

    • E52 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Monetary Policy

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:pri:cepsud:114. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Bobray Bordelon (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ceprius.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.