Rules vs. Discretion in Monetary Policy: From Commodity Money to Unconventional Monetary Policies

U Rules and Discretion in Monetary Policy

HOULD MONETARY POLICY be determined by a legislated rule or by a monetary authority’s discretion? Henry Simons (1936) first raised this issue as a choice between rules and authorities, terms little different than those used in recent discussions. He stresses the value of a rule, such as a law, instead of reliance on an authority’s discretion because “definite, stable, legislative rules of the g...

Divorcing Money from Monetary Policy

onetary policy has traditionally been viewed as the process by which a central bank uses its influence over the supply of money to promote its economic objectives. For example, Milton Friedman (1959, p. 24) defined the tools of monetary policy to be those “powers that enable the [Federal Reserve] System to determine the total amount of money in existence or to alter that amount.” In fact, the v...

Rules, Discretion and Reputation in a Model of Monetary Policy*

In a discretionary regime the monetary authority can print more money and create more inflation than people expect. But, although these inflation surprises can have some benefits, they cannot arise systematically in equilibrium when people understand the policymaker’s incentives and form their expeziations accordingly. Because the policymaker has the power to create inflation shocks ex pest, th...

Rules and Discretion in the Conduct of Monetary Policy

Commitment Versus Discretion in Monetary Policy

*The views expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia or the Federal Reserve System. hether policymakers should commit to a certain course of action or have the flexibility to approach each situation as it arises continues to be a central question in the design of monetary policy. A seminal article written by two...