This paper adopts a principal--agent framework to determine how a central banker's incentives should be structured to induce the socially optimal policy. In contrast to previous findings using ad hoc targeting rules, the inflation bias of discretionary policy is eliminated and an optimal response to shocks is achieved by the optimal incentive contract, even in the presence of private central-bank information. In the one-period model that has formed the basis for much of the literature on discretionary monetary policy, it is shown that the optimal contract ties the rewards of the central banker to realized inflation.

By using the actual money supply as the base for its target ranges, the Federal Reserve impounds past target misses into the level of its new target ranges. This practice of allowing "base drift" has often been criticized. A simple aggregate model is used to derive the optimal degree of base drift. It is shown that some drift will be optimal if income and/or velocity are nonstationary.

We parameterize central-bank independence in terms of partisanship and term length, and we focus on the implications of alternative policy structures for real economic activity. While long terms of office for the central banker can reduce the role of electoral surprises, term lengths that are too long are costly if societal preferences are subject to permanent shifts. The appointment of a conservative central banker increases the optimal term length and leads to lower average inflation but need not increase the volatility of output.

In a standard New Keynesian model, a myopic central bank concerned with stabilizing inflation and changes in the output gap will implement a policy under discretion that replicates the optimal, timeless perspective, precommitment policy. By stabilizing output gap changes, the central bank imparts inertia into output and inflation that is absent under pure discretion. Even a fully optimizing (i.e., non-myopic) central bank operating in a discretionary policy environment achieves better social outcomes if it focuses on inflation and changes in the output gap than are achieved under inflation targeting.(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

This paper adopts a principal-agent framework to determine how a central banker's incentives should be structured to induce the socially optimal policy. In contrast to previous findings using ad hoc targeting rules, the inflation bias of discretionary policy is eliminated and an optimal response to shocks is achieved by the optimal incentive contract, even in the presence of private central-bank information. In the one-period model that has formed the basis for much of the literature on discretionary monetary policy, it is shown that the optimal contract ties the rewards of the central banker to realized inflation.

The Federal Reserve has been criticized for allowing the base from which it calculates its target growth paths for the monetary aggregatesto drift from year to year in response to past deviations from target.Drift in the base implies that target misses permanently affect the levels of the monetary aggregates. Using a simple theoretical model, this paper shows that the optimal degree of base drift consistent withprice stability depends on the importance of permanent versus transitory income and velocity disturbances. Neither zero base drift nor complete base drift are likely to be compatible with price stability.

Central-bank independence, economic behavior, and optimal term lengths