Monetary Rule, Central Bank Loss and Household’s Welfare: an Empirical Investigation

Jonathan Benchimol and Andre Fourcans ()

No 329, Globalization Institute Working Papers from Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas

Abstract: Which monetary policy rule best fits the historical data? Which rule is most effective to reach the central bank?s objectives? Is minimizing a central bank loss equivalent to maximizing households? welfare? Are NGDP growth or level targeting good options, and if so, when? Do they perform better than Taylor-type rules? In order to answer these questions, we use Bayesian estimations to evaluate the Smets and Wouters (2007) model under nine monetary policy rules with US data ranging from 1955 to 2017 and over three different sub-periods (among them the zero lower bound period where a shadow rate is introduced). We find that when considering the minimization of the central bank?s loss function, the estimates generally indicate the superiority of NGDP level targeting rules. If the behavior of the Fed is expressed in terms of households-welfare, the implications are not necessarily the same.

JEL-codes: E32 E52 E58 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 28 pages
Date: 2017-10-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cba, nep-mac and nep-mon
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:fip:feddgw:329

DOI: 10.24149/gwp329

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