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Interest and Prices: Foundations of a Theory of Monetary Policy

(Hardback)


Publishing Details

Full Title:

Interest and Prices: Foundations of a Theory of Monetary Policy

Contributors:

By (Author) Michael Woodford

ISBN:

9780691010496

Publisher:

Princeton University Press

Imprint:

Princeton University Press

Publication Date:

17th November 2003

Country:

United States

Classifications

Readership:

Professional and Scholarly

Fiction/Non-fiction:

Non Fiction

Main Subject:
Dewey:

332.46

Prizes:

Winner of Association of American Publishers/Professional and Scholarly Publishing Awards: Economics 2003

Physical Properties

Physical Format:

Hardback

Number of Pages:

808

Dimensions:

Width 152mm, Height 235mm

Weight:

1247g

Description

With the collapse of the Bretton Woods system, any pretense of a connection of the world's currencies to any real commodity has been abandoned. Yet since the 1980s, most central banks have abandoned money-growth targets as practical guidelines for monetary policy as well. How then can pure "fiat" currencies be managed so as to create confidence in the stability of national units of account Interest and Prices seeks to provide theoretical foundations for a rule-based approach to monetary policy suitable for a world of instant communications and ever more efficient financial markets. In such a world, effective monetary policy requires that central banks construct a conscious and articulate account of what they are doing. Michael Woodford reexamines the foundations of monetary economics, and shows how interest-rate policy can be used to achieve an inflation target in the absence of either commodity backing or control of a monetary aggregate.The book further shows how the tools of modern macroeconomic theory can be used to design an optimal inflation-targeting regime--one that balances stabilization goals with the pursuit of price stability in a way that is grounded in an explicit welfare analysis, and that takes account of the "New Classical" critique of traditional policy evaluation exercises. It thus argues that rule-based policymaking need not mean adherence to a rigid framework unrelated to stabilization objectives for the sake of credibility, while at the same time showing the advantages of rule-based over purely discretionary policymaking.

Reviews

Winner of the 2003 Award for Best Professional/Scholarly Book in Economics, Association of American Publishers

Author Bio

Michael Woodford is the Harold H. Helm '20 Professor of Economics and Banking at Princeton University. He is the coeditor, with John B. Taylor, of "The Handbook of Macroeconomics".

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