Informational Accuracy and the Optimal Monetary Regime

King (1997) develops a framework for assessing four monetary regimes: an optimal state-contingent rule; a non-contingent rule; pure discretion; and a Rogoffian conservative central banker. Using this framework we show (a) that King is wrong to claim that it implies that an optimally-conservative central banker always dominates a fixed-rule monetary regime; (b) that if the private sector has a signal of the shock to which monetary policy responds - the accuracy of which is exogenously fixed - then either the optimal state-contingent rule or the optimally-conservative central bank can dominate; and (c) that if the private sector optimally chooses the accuracy of its signal then any regime can dominate.Monetary policy, expectations, Rogoffian central banker.

Relative Prices as Aggregate Supply Shocks with Trend Inflation

This paper modifies the menu-cost model that Ball and Mankiw (1995) put forward to explain the correlation between the first- and higher-moments of the distribution of US price changes by allowing for non-zero trend inflation. Simulations suggest that even if trend inflation is only mildly positive - such as the 3 percent per annum experienced by the US in the last 50 years - the predictions of the Ball and Mankiw model are greatly altered. We then show that some of these predictions are rejected by annual post-WW2 US data.Inflation, menu-cost, relative price variance, relative price skewness, skew-normal.

Estimating Betas and Stock-Return Correlations From Monthly Data: A Warning Note.

The empirical finance literature makes extensive use of 'monthly' stock returns, where a monthly return is the change in stock price between one particular day of the calendar month - which we term the reference day - and the corresponding day of the following month. We show that estimates of betas and stock-market correlations are highly sensitive to the choice of reference day and we suggest that studies based on such estimates can be unreliable. We support this claim by carrying out two small-scale empirical studies showing in each case that the results of critical tests are dependent upon the choice of reference day.betas, international correlations, estimation risk

Some International Evidence on the Quantity Theory of Money.

This paper develops a two-equation model of money, interest rates, and inflation based on the simple quantity theory an d Fisher's hypothesis about nominal interest rates. The model has both within-equation and cross-equation restrictions that are tested on long-run average cross-country data covering the period 1962-88. The major finding is that the restrictions cannot be easily rejected and this suggests that the behavior of interest rates and inflation in a major part of the postwar period can be understood in terms of classical, monetary forces. Copyright 1993 by Ohio State University Press.