Abstract
Because optimal plans are time-inconsistent, continuing one from a previous period is not optimal from today’s perspective, and may not outperform discretion, even ignoring surprise deviations. Hence, a once-and-for-all commitment to the optimal plan from a particular period does not always outperform discretion over time, even if superior from the perspective of the original period. Forward-looking policymakers might therefore not want to bind themselves to the optimal plan from any period. The vast literature on commitment strategies illustrates that it is a common misconception that a once-and-for-all commitment to the optimal plan is always preferable to discretion.
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- Contributions
- An empirical study on the New Keynesian wage Phillips curve: Japan and the US
- Risk averse banks and excess reserve fluctuations
- Advances
- Signaling in monetary policy near the zero lower bound
- Contributions
- Robust learning in the foreign exchange market
- Foreign official holdings of US treasuries, stock effect and the economy: a DSGE approach
- Discretion rather than rules? Outdated optimal commitment plans versus discretionary policymaking
- Agency costs and the monetary transmission mechanism
- Advances
- Optimal monetary policy in a model of vertical production and trade with reference currency
- The financial accelerator and marketable debt: the prolongation channel
- The welfare cost of inflation with banking time
- Prospect Theory and sentiment-driven fluctuations
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- The macroeconomic impact of shocks to bank capital buffers in the Euro Area
- The effects of monetary policy on input inventories
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