Monetary Policy in Low-Inflation Economies

All central banks manage the supply of money and credit in their countries, increasing and decreasing them as needed to provide what economies need to keep growing. The way central banks typically handle that job involves short-term interest rates. But when inflation is low, central banks can’t use their usual methods to get money and credit into an economy that needs it. Several essays in this volume describe the work of economists who have investigated problems that central banks might have when inflation gets low. Other essays investigate related questions such as whether an economy suffers when it moves from high inflation to low inflation, what the costs of inflation are to economic welfare, and whether a little bit of inflation can actually be good for economic growth.

David E. Altig, senior vice president and director of research at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, was vice president and associate director of research at the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland when this book began to be compiled. He oversees the Atlanta Federal Reserve's blog called 'Macroblog'. His published research focuses on tax policy, business cycle issues, and monetary policy analysis. Dr Altig has taught at a number of universities - the University of Chicago, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland State University, John Carroll University, and Indiana University - and lectured in the Chinese Executive MBA program sponsored by the University of Minnesota and Lignan College of Sun Yat-Sen University. Dr Altig earned his doctorate in economics from Brown University.

Ed Nosal, vice president and senior financial economist in the financial markets group at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, was senior research advisor in the Research Department of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland when this book began to be compiled. His research focuses on money and banking. Dr Nosal has taught at the University of Chicago, University of Waterloo, University of British Columbia, University of New South Wales, and the National University of Singapore. Dr Nosal earned his doctorate in economics from Queen's University in Canada.