伯南克宏观经济学14.pptVIP

The Conduct of Monetary Policy: Rules Versus Discretion Most Keynesian economists support discretion Discretion means the central bank looks at all the information about the economy and uses its judgment as to the best course of policy Discretion gives the central bank the freedom to stimulate or contract the economy when needed; it is thus called activist The Conduct of Monetary Policy: Rules Versus Discretion Monetarists and classical macroeconomists advocate the use of rules Rules make monetary policy automatic, as they require the central bank to set policy based on a set of simple, prespecified, and publicly announced rules Examples of rules Increase the monetary base by 1% each quarter Maintain the price of gold at a fixed level The Conduct of Monetary Policy: Rules Versus Discretion Monetarists and classical macroeconomists advocate the use of rules The rule should be simple; there shouldn’t be much leeway for exceptions The rule should specify something under the Fed’s control, like growth of the monetary base, not something like fixing the unemployment rate at 4%, over which the Fed has little control The rule may also permit the Fed to respond to the state of the economy The Conduct of Monetary Policy: Rules Versus Discretion Example: The Taylor rule John Taylor of Stanford University introduced a rule that allows the Fed to take economic conditions into account The rule is i = ??? 0.02 ? 0.5y ? 0.5 (? – 0.02), where i is the nominal Fed funds rate, ? is the inflation rate over the last 4 quarters, y = the percentage deviation of output from full-employment output If either y or ? increase, the real Fed funds rate is increased, causing monetary policy to tighten (and vice-versa) The Conduct of Monetary Policy: Rules Versus Discretion The monetarist case for rules Monetarism is an economic theory emphasizing the importance of monetary factors in the economy The leading monetarist is Milton Friedman, who has argued for many years (since 1959) t