Michael Woodford
John
Bates Clark Professor of Political Economy
Department of Economics,
Phone: 212-854-1094 Fax: 212-854-8059
e-mail: michael.woodford@columbia.edu
Office: 1009B International Affairs Building
- Biographical
§ Short Biography (MS Word file)
§ Curriculum Vitae [August 2008 (pdf file)]
§ Interview with Michael Parkin, May 2002. [Published in Parkin, Economics, 6th edition, Addison-Wesley, 2002. (MS Word file)]
§ Interview with
Philipp Harms, August 2004. [Published in
§ Research Summary: “Rules for Monetary Policy,” January 2006. [Published in NBER Reporter, Spring 2006.]
§ Deutsche Bank Prize in Financial Economics
- For General Readers
§ "Revolution and
Evolution in Twentieth-Century Macroeconomics," June 1999. (pdf format) [Presented at a conference, Frontiers
of the Mind in the Twenty-First Century, U.S. Library of Congress,
§ "Monetary Policy in a World Without Money," revised August 2000. (MS Word format) [Note: file must be printed on a Postscript printer in order for all figures to be visible.] [Published in: International Finance 3: 229-260 (2000).]
§ "Financial Market Efficiency and the Effectiveness of Monetary Policy," remarks at the symposium on "Financial Innovation and Monetary Transmission," Federal Reserve Bank of New York, April 5-6, 2001. Revised March 2002. (pdf format)
§ “The Return of Monetary Rules,” chapter 1 from Interest and Prices: Foundations of a Theory of Monetary Policy, Princeton University Press, 2003. (pdf format)
§ “Central-Bank Communication and Stabilization Policy,” published in German translation in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, September 29, 2007. (MS Word format)
§ “The Case for Forecast Targeting as a Monetary Policy Strategy,” Journal of Economic Perspectives, Fall 2007.
§ “The Fed’s
‘Enhanced’ Communication Strategy: Work in Progress,” remarks delivered at
the NABE session on Monetary Policy Transparency and Communications, ASSA
meetings,
§ “Convergence in Macroeconomics: Elements of the New Synthesis,” remarks for a panel discussion at the AEA meeting, January 2008.
§ “Principles
and Public Policy Decisions: The Case of Monetary Policy,” presented at the
Law, Economics and Organization Workshop,
- Selected Research – Recent
- Imperfectly Competitive Models of Pricing
§ “The Cyclical Behavior of Prices and Costs,” with Julio J. Rotemberg, in J.B. Taylor and M. Woodford, eds., Handbook of Macroeconomics, vol. 1B, 1999. [For data, see below.]
§ “Imperfect Common
Knowledge and the Effects of Monetary Policy,” October 2001. (pdf format) [Published in P. Aghion, R.
Frydman, J. Stiglitz, and M. Woodford, eds., Knowledge, Information, and
Expectations in Modern Macroeconomics: In Honor of Edmund S. Phelps,
§ “Firm-Specific Capital and the New-Keynesian Phillips Curve,” January 2005. (pdf format) [Published in: International Journal of Central Banking 1(2): 1-46 (2005).]
§ “Interpreting Inflation Persistence,” January 2006. (pdf format) Comments on the conference on ‘Quantitative Evidence on Price Determination,’ held at the Federal Reserve Board, September 2005. [Published in Journal of Money, Credit and Banking.]
§ “Information-Constrained State-Dependent Pricing,” April 2008, revised June 2009. (pdf format)
- Quantitative Models of the Monetary Transmission Mechanism
§ “An Optimization-Based Econometric Model for the Evaluation of Monetary Policy,” with Julio J. Rotemberg, NBER Macroeconomics Annual 12: 297-346 (1997). [More complete version circulated as NBER technical working paper no. 233, May 1998.][For programs used in this work, see below.]
§ “Interest-Rate
Rules in an Estimated Sticky-Price Model,” with Julio J. Rotemberg, in J.B.
Taylor, ed., Monetary Policy Rules, U. of
§ For a more recent exercise in the same vein, see the estimated model in M. Giannoni and M. Woodford, “Optimal Inflation Targeting Rules,” below.
- Optimal Monetary Policy
§ “Optimal Monetary Policy Inertia,” August 1999. (pdf format) [Also available as NBER working paper no. 7261.]
§ “Optimal Interest-Rate Smoothing,” revised June 2003. (pdf format) [Revised excerpt from “Optimal Monetary Policy Inertia,” published in Review of Economic Studies 70: 861-886 (2003).]
§ “Commentary: How Should
Monetary Policy Be Conducted in an Era of Price Stability?” September 1999.
(pdf format) [Published in:
Federal Reserve Bank of
§ “Pitfalls of Forward-Looking Monetary Policy,” January 2000. (MS Word format) [Published in: American Economic Review 90(2): 100-104 (2000).]
§ “The Taylor Rule and Optimal Monetary Policy,” January 2001. (pdf format) [Shorter version published in: American Economic Review 91(2): 232-237 (2001).]
§ “Optimal Interest-Rate Rules: I. General Theory,” with Marc P. Giannoni, revised December 2002. (pdf format) [Also available as NBER working paper no. 9419.]
§ “Optimal Interest-Rate Rules: II. Applications,” with Marc P. Giannoni, revised December 2002. (pdf format) [Also available as NBER working paper no. 9420.]
- Linear-Quadratic Approximation of Optimal Policy Problems
§ “Inflation Stabilization and Welfare,” Contributions to Macroeconomics, vol. 2, issue 1, article 1 (2002). [A substantially extended version of this can be found as chapter 6 of Interest and Prices.]
§ “Inflation Stabilization and Welfare: The Case of a Distorted Steady State,” with Pierpaolo Benigno, revised February 2005. (pdf format) [Published in: Journal of the European Economics Association 3: 1185-1236 (2005). May 2004 draft presented at ESSIM 2004 contains generalizations that have been omitted in later drafts.]
§ “Optimal Stabilization Policy when Wages and Prices are Sticky: The Case of a Distorted Steady State,” with Pierpaolo Benigno, revised July 2004. (pdf format) [Also available as NBER working paper no. 10839.]
§ “Optimal Taxation in an RBC Model: A Linear-Quadratic Approach,” with Pierpaolo Benigno, revised December 2005. (pdf format) [Published in: Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control 30: 1445-1489 (2006).]
§ “Linear-Quadratic Approximation of Optimal Policy Problems,” with Pierpaolo Benigno, revised August 2008. (pdf format)
- Inflation Targeting
§ "Implementing
Optimal Policy through Inflation-Forecast Targeting," with Lars E.O.
Svensson, November 1999, revised April 2003. (pdf
format) [Published in: B.S. Bernanke and M. Woodford, eds., Inflation
Targeting,
§ "Optimal Inflation
Targeting Rules," with Marc P. Giannoni, revised August 2003. (pdf format) [Published in: B.S. Bernanke and M.
Woodford, eds., Inflation Targeting,
§ "Inflation Targeting
and Optimal Monetary Policy," October 2003. (pdf format) [Presented at the Annual Policy Conference,
Federal Reserve Bank of
§ “The Case for Forecast Targeting as a Monetary Policy Strategy,” Journal of Economic Perspectives, Fall 2007.
§ “Forecast Targeting as
a Monetary Policy Strategy: Policy Rules in Practice,” December 2007. (pdf format) [Revision of paper presented at the
conference “John Taylor’s Contributions to Monetary Theory and Policy,” Federal
Reserve Bank of
- Optimal Policy under Uncertainty
§ "Indicator Variables for Optimal Policy," with Lars E.O. Svensson, revised January 2002. (pdf format) [Published in: Journal of Monetary Economics 50: 691-720 (2003).]
§ "Indicator Variables for Optimal Policy under Asymmetric Information," with Lars E.O. Svensson, revised August 2002. (pdf format) [Earlier draft available as NBER working paper no. 8255.][Published in: Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control.]
§ "Optimal Policy with Partial Information in a Forward-Looking Model: Certainty-Equivalence Redux," with Lars E.O. Svensson, June 2002. (pdf format)
§ “Robustly Optimal Monetary Policy with Near-Rational Expectations,” revised August 2008. (pdf format) [Additional material in December 2005 draft.]
- Deflation and Liquidity Traps
§ "The Zero Interest-Rate Bound and Optimal Monetary Policy," with Gauti B. Eggertsson, revised June 2003. (pdf format) [Presented at the Brookings Panel on Economic Activity, March 2003.]
§ "Optimal Monetary
Policy in a Liquidity Trap," with Gauti B. Eggertsson, September 2003.
[Also available as NBER w.p. no. 9968. Updated version of Brookings paper, with
additional discussion of
§ "Optimal Monetary and Fiscal Policy in a Liquidity Trap," with Gauti B. Eggertsson, July 2004. (pdf format) [Published in NBER International Seminar on Macroeconomics 2004.]
§ “Comment on ‘Using a Long-Term Interest Rate as the Instrument of Monetary Policy’,” April 2005. (pdf format) [Published in: Journal of Monetary Economics 52: 881-887 (2005).]
- Central-Bank Communication Policy
§ “Central-Bank
Communication and Policy Effectiveness,” revised September 2005. (pdf file) [Publication
draft of paper presented at FRB Kansas City Symposium on “The Greenspan Era:
Lessons for the Future,”
§ “The Fed’s
‘Enhanced’ Communication Strategy: Work in Progress,” remarks delivered at
the NABE session on Monetary Policy Transparency and Communications, ASSA
meetings,
- Financial Structure and Inflation Control
§ "Doing without Money: Controlling Inflation in a Post-Monetary World," Review of Economic Dynamics 1: 173-219 (1998). [ August 1997 draft. (pdf format) Published version available at www.idealibrary.com]
§ "Monetary Policy in a World Without Money," revised August 2000. (MS Word format) [Note: file must be printed on a Postscript printer in order for all figures to be visible.] [Published in: International Finance 3: 229-260 (2000).]
§ "Monetary Policy in the Information Economy," revised September 2001. (pdf format) Paper presented at the 2001 Jackson Hole Symposium, August 30 - September 1, 2001. [For data, see below.]
§ "Financial Market Efficiency and the Effectiveness of Monetary Policy," remarks at the symposium on "Financial Innovation and Monetary Transmission," Federal Reserve Bank of New York, April 5-6, 2001. Revised March 2002. (pdf format)
§ “How Important is Money in the
Conduct of Monetary Policy?” Revised July 2007. (pdf format) Paper
presented at the Conference in Honor of Ernst Baltensperger,
§ “Does a ‘Two-Pillar Phillips Curve’ Justify a Two-Pillar Monetary Policy Strategy?” March 2007. (pdf format)
§ “Credit Frictions and
Optimal Monetary Policy,” with Vasco Curdia, revised May 2009. (pdf format) Revised draft of paper
prepared for the BIS annual conference, “Whither Monetary Policy?”
§ “Credit Spreads and Monetary Policy,” with Vasco Curdia, May 2009. (pdf format) Prepared for conference on “Financial Markets and Monetary Policy,” Federal Reserve Board, June 4-5, 2009.
- Fiscal Policy and Inflation
§ "Public Debt and the Price Level," June 1998. (pdf format)
§ "Fiscal Requirements for Price Stability," October 2000. (pdf format) [Published in: Journal of Money, Credit and Banking 33: 669-728 (2001).]
§ "Optimal Monetary and Fiscal Policy: A Linear-Quadratic Approach," with Pierpaolo Benigno, revised July 2003. (pdf format) [Published in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 2003]
§ “Optimal Inflation Targeting
under Alternative Fiscal Regimes,” with Pierpaolo Benigno, revised January
2006. (pdf format) Revision of paper presented at the Ninth
Annual Conference of the Central Bank of
- Open-Economy Issues in Monetary Policy
§ “Globalization and Monetary Control,” revised July 2007. (pdf format)
- Books
- Interest and
Prices: Foundations of a Theory of Monetary Policy,
§ Errata: file last updated Febuary 3, 2008. [Readers are encouraged to submit additional corrections at the e-mail address at top of this page.] Certain equations in chapter 5, section 3 of the book are corrected in the paper: "Inflation and Output Dynamics with Firm-Specific Investment," May 2004. [Part of this paper has been revised as “Firm-Specific Capital and the New-Keynesian Phillips Curve,” above.]
§ Symposium on Interest and Prices, at the annual
meeting of the History of Economics Society,
- Old Papers -- Hard to Find
§ "Indeterminacy of Equilibrium in the Overlapping Generations Model: A Survey," May 1984. [Scanned typescript. (pdf format) ]
§ "Stationary Sunspot Equilibria: The Case of Small Fluctuations around a Deterministic Steady State," September 1986. [Scanned typescript. (pdf format) ]
§ "Aggregate Fluctuations from Independent Sectoral Shocks: Self-Organized Criticality in a Model of Production and Inventory Dynamics," Ricerche Economiche 47: 3-30 (1993). With P. Bak, K. Chen, and J. Scheinkman. [November 1992 draft.(pdf format)]
§ "Real Effects of Monetary Shocks in an Economy with Sequential Purchases," with Robert E. Lucas, Jr., revised April 1994. [Substantial revision relative to earlier NBER working paper. Scanned typescript. (pdf format)]
§ "Notes on Dynamic Efficiency Wage Models," August 1994. [Scanned typescript. (pdf format) ]
- Data and Programs
- Programs and data used in Rotemberg and Woodford papers, "An Optimization-Based Econometric Model..." and "Interest-Rate Rules in an Estimated Sticky-Price Model":
§ NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1997
§ Solution Programs for Linear RE Models
- Data for tables and figures in Rotemberg and Woodford, "The Cyclical Behavior of Prices and Costs". (MS Excel file)
- Programs and data used to produce figures in "Monetary Policy in the Information Economy". (Matlab m-files)
- Programs and data used to produce figures in Giannoni and Woodford, “Optimal Inflation Targeting Rules” (Matlab m-files)
- Programs and data used to produce figures in Interest and Prices, chapter 8. (Matlab m-files)