I examine the impact of alternative monetary policy rules on a rational asset price bubble, through the lens of an overlapping generations model with nominal rigidities. A systematic increase in interest rates in response to a growing bubble is shown to enhance the fluctuations in the latter, through its positive effect on bubble growth. The optimal monetary policy seeks to strike a balance between stabilization of the bubble and stabilization of aggregate demand. The paper's main findings call into question the theoretical foundations of the case for “leaning against the wind” monetary policies.

Is consumption more or less variable than predicted by the permanent-income hypothesis? To answer that question, the author develops a procedure based on a long-run restriction implied by the consumer's intertemporal budget constraints. In contrast to previous work, the approach here (1) does not require any assumptions on the stochastic properties of labor income, (2) does not impose restrictions on the consumer's information set, and (3) is robust to departures from the permanent-income-hypothesis model. The application of the procedure to postwar U.S. data suggests that consumption is smoother than the permanent-income-hypothesis model predicts.

Optimal Monetary Policy in Open versus Closed Economies: An Integrated Approach by Richard Clarida, Jordi Gali and Mark Gertler. Published in volume 91, issue 2, pages 248-252 of American Economic Review, May 2001