*The views expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia or the Federal Reserve System. hether policymakers should commit to a certain course of action or have the flexibility to approach each situation as it arises continues to be a central question in the design of monetary policy. A seminal article written by two...

This paper examines how recent econometric policy evaluation research on monetary policy rules can be applied in a practical policymaking environment. According to this research, good policy rules typically call for changes in the federal funds rate in response to changes in the price level or changes in real income. An objective of the paper is to preserve the concept of such a policy rule in ...

Abstract Tasked with enforcing criminal law, public prosecutors worldwide enjoy broad discretion. Existing literature on prosecutorial discretion and accountability tends to discuss the regulation of or analyse influence procedural environment in which operate. This paper focuses occupational culture as an important factor affecting decisions. It draws particular attention understudied aspect p...

The effect of high job strain (defined as high psychological demands plus low decision latitude at work) on blood pressure was determined in 129 healthy, nonhypertensive men (n = 65) and women (n = 64). Blood pressure measures included mean screening levels obtained in a clinical environment, mean ambulatory levels from one 8-hour workday, and the change in levels from screening to mean work le...

We argue that there are conditions such that any inflation targeting regime is preferable to full policy discretion, even if long-run inflation rates are identical across regimes. The key observation is that strict inflation targeting outperforms the discretionary policy response to sufficiently persistent shocks. Under full policy discretion, inflation expectations over the medium term respond...