The trade balance and the economic outlook

Balance of payments ; International trade ; Economic conditions - United States ; Dollar, American

Inflation Targeting and the Role of Real Objectives

In this paper, I focus on two aspects of central banking – flexibility and transparency – that have been affected by monetary policy debates over the past twenty years. Because criticism of inflation targeting, at least in the United States, often focuses on the claim that an inflation targeting central bank may ignore real economic fluctuations, I direct my comments to the role real objectives play in the design of optimal monetary policy. That is, I focus on how flexible the central bank should be. I argue that, while the recent trend in the academic literature to view central bank objectives as derived from the welfare of the representative agent can be insightful, this perspective is not the only one for thinking about the goals assigned to the central bank. There are reasons why the objectives of a central bank should, potentially, deviate from social welfare, and I will focus on two such reasons; one related to imperfect monitoring and accountability, the other arising from asymmetric information.Central Banks, Monetary Policy, Inflation Targeting.

Are contemporary central banks transparent about economic models and objectives and what difference does it make? - commentary

Monetary policy ; Econometric models ; Banks and banking, Central

Monetary targeting and inflation: 1976-1984

Inflation (Finance) ; Monetary policy - United States ; Money supply

Measuring money

Monetary policy - United States ; Money supply

Monetary Information and Interest Rates

A model of interest rate movements in response to new information on the money stock is developed.The model, which incorporates several earlier approaches as special cases, makes explicit the manner in which estimated interest rate responses to money surprises depend on the relative variances of nominal and real disturbances, as well as on the monetary authority's policy and the credibility of that policy.

Precautionary policies

The research literature in economics has explored the task of decision making under uncertainty and has developed theories about "precautionary" policies and "robust" policies. This Economic Letter summarizes some of the latest results and debates in this literature.Monetary policy ; Forecasting ; Risk

Public preferences and inflation

Inflation (Finance) ; New Zealand

Measurement Error and the Flow of Funds Accounts: Estimates of HouseholdAsset Demand Equations

In the household sector of the Flow of Funds Accounts, the difference between net acquisition of financial assets and net financial savings is equal to a statistical discrepancy which is often quite large relative to the reported changes in asset holdings. This means that the budget restrictions emphasized in the Brainard-Tobin approach to specifying asset demand equations are not satisfied by the data commonly used to estimate such equations. The view adopted in this paper is that the statistical discrepancy should be thought of as resulting from measurement error in the Flow of Funds data. By imposing a structure on the measurement error, a consistent estimator is developed and used to estimate asset demand equations for the household sector. The demand equations are similar in specification to those used by others so that the results allow a direct assessment of the effects of alternative treatments of the statistical discrepancy. The empirical results suggest that qualitative conclusions about the effects of financial flows and interest rates on asset demands are not affected by the way the statistical discrepancy is treated. Quantitative conclusions are, however, affected.