Studies in the Analysis and Design of Monetary Policy

该提案的核心包括两个与货币政策分析和设计有关的广泛项目。第一个项目的目的是扩展和应用我以前的工作，使用“半结构”向量自回归（VAR）方法来衡量货币政策的立场和货币冲击对经济的影响。计划扩展的内容包括：（1）使用这些方法研究美国以外的国家的货币政策;（2）对货币政策对经济的3-6个月“冲击效果”以及货币在一般周期动态中的作用进行实证分析;（3）研究货币政策对大量制造企业的财务和真实的决策的影响。 第二个项目研究日益流行的“通货膨胀目标制”战略。该项目的一个组成部分是一组六个案例研究，将详细记录德国、瑞士、新西兰、加拿大、英国和瑞典采用、实施和结果各种形式的通货膨胀目标制。案例研究的目的是在体制安排、政治先决条件等方面吸取实际经验教训，影响成功的可能性。在定性分析的基础上，还将对采用通货膨胀目标对通货膨胀预期、货币政策行动和通货膨胀行为本身的影响进行更正式的计量经济学检验。在单独的理论论文中，我还将讨论：1）通货膨胀目标制和货币目标制对信誉不完善的中央银行的相对优势; 2）以私营部门的通货膨胀预测为目标，而不是通货膨胀本身的可行性和可取性。 另外两个实证项目将：1）检验新古典增长模型的含义，即一个国家的全要素生产率增长率是严格外生的; 2）研究20世纪30年代的全球货币紧缩是否可以合理地解释为多重均衡之间的转换。

The core of the proposal consists of two broad projects relating to the analysis and design of monetary policy. The objective of the first project is to extend and apply my earlier work on the use of "semi-structural" vector autoregression (VAR) methods to measure the stance of monetary policy and the effects of monetary shocks on the economy. Among the planned extensions are 1) the use of these methods to study monetary policy in countries other than the United States; 2) empirical analyses of the 3-6 month "impact effect" of monetary policy on the economy, and of the role of money in general cyclical dynamics; and 3) a study of the effects of monetary policy on financial and real decisions in a large panel of manufacturing firms. The second project studies the increasingly popular strategy of "inflation targeting". One component of this project will be a set of six case studies, which will document in some detail the adoptimn, implementation, and results of various forms of inflation targeting in Germany, Switzerland, New Zealand, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Sweden. The goal of the case studies is to draw practical lessons about institutional arrangements, political preconditions, etc., that affect the likelihood of success. The qualitative analysis will be supplemented by a more formal econometric examination of the effects of adopting inflation targets on inflation expectations, monetary policy actions, and the behavior of inflation itself. In separate theoretical papers I will also address 1) the relative advantages of inflation targeting and money targeting for central banks with imperfect credibility and 2) the feasibility and desirability of targeting private-sector inflation forecasts, rather than inflation per se. Two additional empirical projects will 1) test the implication of the neoclassical growth model that a country's rate of TFP growth is strictly exogenous and 2) investigate whether the worldwide monetary contraction of the 1930s can be rationalized as a switch am ong multiple equilibria