| This dissertation is comprised of three essays in monetary and international macroeconomics. The first essay, titled "A Dynamic Model of Exogenous Exchange Rate Pass-Through", examines a two-country open economy model with sticky prices where exporters' choice of invoicing currency is endogenous. Besides generating incomplete pass-through, the model yields four main results. First, firms' invoicing strategy is generally time-varying. Second, instant pass-through into import prices is greater than into export prices when depreciation is caused by a domestic monetary expansion. Thirdly, average pass-through is asymmetric in times of persistent depreciation and appreciation. It is higher under depreciation when the destination market is more competitive. Finally, cross-country differences in money supply variability produce an origin-based asymmetry: different average pass-through rates into import and export prices.; The second essay, titled "Limited Commitment, Inaction and Optimal Monetary Policy", examines the optimal frequency of monetary policy meetings when their schedule is pre-announced. The contribution of this paper is twofold. First, we show that in the standard New Keynesian framework infrequent but periodic revision of monetary policy may be desirable even when there are no explicit costs of policy adjustment. Adjustment of policy on a pre-announced schedule de facto acts as a commitment not to adjust in intermediate periods. We find that at short horizons gains from such commitment outweigh welfare costs of central bank's inaction. Second, we solve for the optimal frequency of policy adjustment and characterize its determinants. When applied to the U.S. economy, our analysis suggests that the Federal Open Market Committee should revise the federal funds target rate no more than twice a year.; Finally, the third essay; titled "Does the Federal Reserve Do What It Says It Expects to Do?", studies the behavior of the Federal Open Market Committee in setting the federal funds target rate and making a bias announcement. The bias announcement states the likely direction of policy at the next meeting. The current bias concerning the next interest rate decision should be the optimal forecast based on the committee's interest rate policy rule. Therefore, the interest rate implied by the estimated policy should be consistent not only with the observed rate, but also with the observed bias announcement. We jointly estimate interest rate and bias announcement decision rules and find strong consistency between the two decisions in their response to inflation. However, the response to measures of economic activity is found inconsistent. |
