Studies in the Analysis and Design of Monetary Policy

该提案的核心包括与货币政策的分析和设计有关的两个广泛项目。第一个项目的目标是扩展和应用我早期关于使用“半结构性”向量自回归（VAR）方法来衡量货币政策立场和货币冲击对经济的影响的工作。计划中的扩展包括：1)使用这些方法研究美国以外国家的货币政策；2)货币政策对经济3-6个月的“冲击效应”实证分析，以及货币在总体周期动态中的作用；3)研究货币政策对大型制造业企业财务和实际决策的影响。第二个项目研究日益流行的“通胀目标制”策略。该项目的一个组成部分将是一组六个案例研究，这些案例研究将详细记录德国、瑞士、新西兰、加拿大、英国和瑞典各种形式的通货膨胀目标制的采用、实施和结果。案例研究的目的是吸取有关影响成功可能性的制度安排、政治先决条件等方面的实际教训。定性分析将辅以更正式的计量经济学检验，即采用通胀目标对通胀预期、货币政策行动和通胀本身行为的影响。在单独的理论论文中，我还将讨论1)通胀目标制和货币目标制对信誉不完善的央行的相对优势，以及2)以私营部门通胀预测为目标（而不是通胀本身）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)调查20世纪30年代的全球货币紧缩是否可以被合理化为多重均衡的转换

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