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Rewriting the Monetary-Policy Script

Heise, Michael, (2017), “Rewriting the Monetary-Policy Script”, Project Syndicate, 2 March

The rule of thumb for monetary policymakers has long been that if inflation is below official target ranges, short-term interest rates should be set at a level that spurs spending and investment. This approach has meant that once interest rates reach or approach zero, central banks have little choice but to activate large asset-purchase programs that are supposed to stimulate demand. When circumstances call for it, policymakers default to the predetermined scripts of neo-Keynesian economic models.

But in too many cases, those scripts have led us astray, because they assume that monetary policy has a measurable and foreseeable impact on demand and inflation. There is plenty of reason to question this assumption.
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