Interest-Rate Rules in an Estimated Sticky Price Model

92 Pages Posted: 15 Sep 2000 Last revised: 3 Aug 2022

See all articles by Julio J. Rotemberg

Julio J. Rotemberg

Harvard University, Business, Government and the International Economy Unit (deceased); National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) (deceased)

Michael Woodford

Columbia University, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Department of Economics

Date Written: June 1998

Abstract

This paper evaluates alternative rules by which the Fed may set interest rates using the small model of the U.S. economy estimated in Rotemberg and Woodford (1997). Our main substantive finding is that low and stable inflation together with stable interest rates can be achieved by letting the funds rate respond positively to inflation while also responding, with a coefficient bigger than one, to the lagged funds rate itself. A rule in which the interest rate is set in this extremely simple way does almost as well as a more complicated rule which is optimal in our setting, in the sense of maximizing expected utility to the representative household. Furthermore, when the funds rate responds to inflation only with a delay, due to delay in the availability of inflation data, performance under the rule is only slightly reduced.

Suggested Citation

Rotemberg, Julio J. and Woodford, Michael, Interest-Rate Rules in an Estimated Sticky Price Model (June 1998). NBER Working Paper No. w6618, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=226338

Julio J. Rotemberg (Contact Author)

Harvard University, Business, Government and the International Economy Unit (deceased) ( email )

Cambridge, MA
United States
617-495-1015 (Phone)
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National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) (deceased)

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Michael Woodford

Columbia University, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Department of Economics ( email )

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United States