Michael Woodford

        John Bates Clark Professor of Political Economy

         Department of Economics, Columbia University, 420 W. 118th Street, New York, NY 10027
         Fax: 212-854-8059

         [Telephone 2007-08 only: 203-436-8475]

         e-mail:  michael.woodford@columbia.edu

         Office: 1009B International Affairs Building

  • Biographical

§         Short Biography  (MS Word file)

§         Curriculum Vitae [September 2007 (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 Swiss National Bank Study Center Gerzensee Newsletter, January 2005.]

§         Research Summary: “Rules for Monetary Policy,” January 2006. [Published in NBER Reporter, Spring 2006.]

§         Deutsche Bank Prize in Financial Economics

  • 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, Princeton Univ. Press, 2002.]

§         “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. (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 Chicago Press, 1999. [For programs used in this work, see below.]

§         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 Kansas City, New Challenges for Monetary Policy, 1999.]

§         “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 September 2007. (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, University of Chicago Press, 2005.]

§         "Optimal Inflation Targeting Rules," with Marc P. Giannoni, revised August 2003. (pdf format)  [Published in: B.S. Bernanke and M. Woodford, eds., Inflation Targeting, University of Chicago Press, 2005.]

§         "Inflation Targeting and Optimal Monetary Policy," October 2003. (pdf format) [Presented at the Annual Policy Conference, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, Oct. 16-17, 2003.]

§         “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 Dallas, October 2007.]

    • 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.][Forthcoming, 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 December 2005. (pdf format)

    • 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 Japan; presented at International Workshop on Overcoming Deflation and Revitalizing the Japanese Economy, ESRI, Tokyo, Sept. 18, 2003.]

§         "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,” Jackson Hole, Wyoming, August 25-27, 2005.]

§         “The Fed’s ‘Enhanced’ Communication Strategy: Work in Progress,” remarks delivered at the NABE session on Monetary Policy Transparency and Communications, ASSA meetings, New Orleans, January 5, 2008. (MS Word format)

    • Monetary and Non-Monetary Approaches to the Control of Inflation

§         "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, University of Bern, June 2007.

§         “Does a ‘Two-Pillar Phillips Curve’ Justify a Two-Pillar Monetary Policy Strategy?” March 2007. (pdf format)

    • 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 Chile, October 21-22, 2005.

    • 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, Princeton University Press, 2003.

§         PUP listing [read the first chapter!]

§         Table of contents

§         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, Toronto, June 2004: papers by Kevin Hoover, David Laidler, Perry Mehrling, Mauro Boianovsky and Hans-Michael Trautwein, and a response to the papers by Michael Woodford. [Post-conference revised drafts posted here.]

  • 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) ]

  • Other Writing

§         "An Interview with William A. Brock," September 1999. (MS Word format) [Published in: Macroeconomic Dynamics 4: 108-138 (2000).]

§         "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, Washington, D.C., June 1999.]

§         "Edmund S. Phelps and Modern Macroeconomics," with P. Aghion. R. Frydman, and J. Stiglitz, November 2001. (MS Word format) [Published in Aghion, Frydman, Stiglitz and Woodford, Knowledge, Information and Expectations in Modern Macroeconomics: In Honor of Edmund S. Phelps, Princeton University Press, 2002.]

  • 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

§         "Interest-Rate Rules"

§         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)