Published papers

When the central bank has information that can help the private sector better predict the future, should it communicate such information to the public? In purely forward-looking New Keynesian models, such Delphic forward guidance unambiguously reduces ex ante welfare by increasing the variability of inflation and the output gap. We call this phenomenon the Delphic forward guidance puzzle. In more elaborate models with endogenous state variables, a combination of Delphic forward guidance and preemptive policy actions may improve welfare. However, full information revelation is generally not optimal and what information needs to be revealed is highly model-dependent.

Reflecting recent economic developments in Japan, there is a growing interest in how monetary policy should be conducted under low inflation and nominal interest rates. Among several proposed solutions, the conventional wisdom seems to be to commit to lower future short-term nominal interest rates through some variation on price-level targeting. We confirm the effectiveness of such a policy in a large-scale dynamic general equilibrium model: the Japanese Economic Model. However, uncertainty - which affects how monetary policy should be conducted - increases in the presence of the zero bound on nominal interest rates. We posit that the increased uncertainty may explain why the central bank cannot fully commit to a certain fully specified policy scheme far into the future when the economy is caught in a liquidity trap. © Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2005.

We examine how a central bank's economic forecasts affect forecasts by professional forecasters and vice versa. Results show that while central bank forecasts are not significantly influenced by those of professional forecasters, the latter are however notably affected by the former. © 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

In this paper, we investigate the output composition of the monetary policy transmission mechanism in Japan. The predominant channel through which monetary policy affects output in Japan is usually thought to be the investment channel, namely the process whereby a change in the interest rate alters the cost of capital and therefore investment. In the United States, however, the consumption channel, which works through intertemporal substitution, is commonly considered the more significant of the two. The aim of this paper is twofold: 1) based on analysis using VAR models to understand which of the two channels, the consumption channel or the investment channel, plays the more important role in the transmission of the Japanese monetary policy: and 2) to contribute to the research on what Angeloni, Kashyap, Mojon and Terlizzese (2003) term the "Output Composition Puzzle," referring to the fact that whereas in the United States the predominant driver of output changes is the consumption channel, in the Euro area it is the investment channel. Results obtained from the Japanese models imply that the investment channel is more important. Copyright ©2004 by the authors. All rights reserved.

This paper revisits optimal monetary policy in open economies, in particular, focusing on the noncooperative policy game under local currency pricing in a two-country dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model. We first derive the quadratic loss functions which noncooperative policy makers aim to minimize. Then, we show that noncooperative policy makers face extra trade-offs regarding stabilizing real marginal costs induced by deviations from the law of one price under local currency pricing, and that optimal monetary policy seeks to stabilize CPI inflation rates and more so under noncooperation than it does under cooperation. As a result of the increased number of stabilizing objectives, welfare gains from cooperation emerge even when two countries face only technology shocks. Still, gains from cooperation are not large, implying that frictions other than nominal rigidities are necessary to strongly recommend cooperation as an important policy framework to increase global welfare.

© 2018 Elsevier B.V. We explore how outcomes of optimal monetary policy with loose commitment (Schaumburg and Tambalotti, 2007; Debortoli and Nunes, 2010) with the non-reoptimization probability of [Formula presented] can be interpretable as outcomes of deeper optimal policy under sustainable plans (Chari and Kehoe, 1990) with [Formula presented]-period punishment. In a standard monetary-policy framework, we show that, for any sufficiently high value of [Formula presented], there exists an integer [Formula presented] such that impulse responses to the cost-push shock under each policy are similar to each other.

This paper evaluates professional forecasters' behavior using a panel data of individual forecasts. We find that (i) professional forecasts are behavioral, and (ii) there exists a stock bond dissonance: the forecasting behavior seems to be stubborn in the stock market, but jumpy in the bond market Even in the same country, forecasting behavior is quite different by market. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Do financial frictions call for cross-border policy cooperation? This paper investigates the implications of financial frictions in the form of staggered loan contracts supplied by monopolistic banks, for monetary policy. Using the linear quadratic (LQ) framework, we show that policy cooperation yields long-run gains in addition to gains from stabilizing inefficient fluctuations over the business cycle, as usually found in models with price rigidities. The Ramsey optimal steady states differ between cooperation and noncooperation. Such gains from cooperation arise irrespective of capital account liberalization.