TY  - JOUR
AU  - Atkeson,Andrew
AU  - Chari,V. V.
AU  - Kehoe,Patrick
TI  - Sophisticated Monetary Policies
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 14883
PY  - 2009
Y2  - April 2009
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w14883
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w14883.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Andrew Atkeson
Bunche Hall 9381
Department of Economics
UCLA
Box 951477
Los Angeles, CA  90095-1477
Tel: 866/312-9770
Fax: 310/825-9528
E-Mail: andy@atkeson.net

Varadarajan V. Chari
Department of Economics
University of Minnesota
1035 Heller Hall
271 - 19th Avenue South
Minneapolis, MN 55455
Tel: 612/626-5171
Fax: (612) 624-0209
E-Mail: varadarajanvchari@gmail.com

Patrick Kehoe
Research Department
Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis
90 Hennepin Avenue
Minneapolis, MN  55480-0291
Tel: 612/204-5525
Fax: 612/204-5515
E-Mail: pkehoe@res.mpls.frb.fed.us
AB  - In standard approaches to monetary policy, interest rate rules often lead to indeterminacy. Sophisticated policies, which depend on the history of private actions and can differ on and off the equilibrium path, can eliminate indeterminacy and uniquely implement any desired competitive equilibrium. Two types of sophisticated policies illustrate our approach. Both use interest rates as the policy instrument along the equilibrium path. But when agents deviate from that path, the regime switches, in one example to money; in the other, to a hybrid rule. Both lead to unique implementation, while pure interest rate rules do not. We argue that adherence to the Taylor principle is neither necessary nor sufficient for unique implementation with pure interest rate rules but is sufficient with hybrid rules. Our results are robust to imperfect information and may provide a rationale for empirical work on monetary policy rules and determinacy.
ER  -