An investigation of the gains from commitment in monetary policy

Ernst Schaumburg and Andrea Tambalotti

No 171, Staff Reports from Federal Reserve Bank of New York

Abstract: This paper proposes a simple framework for analyzing a continuum of monetary policy rules characterized by differing degrees of credibility, in which commitment and discretion become special cases of what we call quasi commitment. The monetary policy authority is assumed to formulate optimal commitment plans, to be tempted to renege on them, and to succumb to this temptation with a constant exogenous probability known to the private sector. By interpreting this probability as a continuous measure of the (lack of) credibility of the monetary policy authority, we investigate the welfare effect of a marginal increase in credibility. Our main finding is that, in a simple model of the monetary transmission mechanism, most of the gains from commitment accrue at relatively low levels of credibility.

Keywords: Monetary policy; central banking (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E52 E58 E61 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2003-08-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cba, nep-mac and nep-mon
Note: For a published version of this report, see Ernst Schaumburg and Andrea Tambalotti, "An Investigation of the Gains from Commitment in Monetary Policy," Journal of Monetary Economics 54, no. 2 (March 2007): 302-24.
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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Related works:
Journal Article: An investigation of the gains from commitment in monetary policy (2007)
Working Paper: An Investigation of the Gains from Commitment in Monetary Policy (2004)
Working Paper: An Investigation of the Gains from Commitment in Monetary Policy (2003)
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