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We study optimal Taylor-type interest rate rules in an economy with credit market imperfections. Our analysis builds on the agency cost framework of Carlstrom and Fuerst [1997. Agency costs, net worth and business fluctuations: a computable general equilibrium analysis. American Economic Review 87, 893-910], which we extend in two directions. First, we embed monopolistic competition and sticky prices. Second, we modify the stochastic structure of the model in order to generate a countercyclical premium on external finance. This is achieved by linking the mean distribution of investment opportunities faced by entrepreneurs to aggregate total factor productivity. We model monetary policy in terms of simple welfare-maximizing interest rate rules. We find that monetary policy should respond to increases in asset prices by lowering interest rates. However, when monetary policy responds strongly to inflation, the marginal welfare gain of responding to asset prices vanishes. Within the class of linear interest rate rules that we analyze, a strong anti-inflationary stance always attains the highest level of welfare. r

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We analyze optimal monetary policy in a small open economy characterized by home bias in consumption. Peculiar to our framework is the application of a Ramsey-type analysis to a model of the recent open-economy New Keynesian literature. We show that home bias in consumption is a sufficient condition for inducing the monetary policymaker of an open economy to deviate from a strategy of strict markup stabilization and contemplate some (optimal) degree of exchange rate stabilization. We focus on the optimal setting of policy both in the case of firms setting prices one period in advance and in a gradual fashion subject to adjustment costs. While the first setup allows us to analytically highlight home bias as an independent source of equilibrium markup variability, the second setup allows to study the effects of future expectations on the optimal policy problem and the effect of home bias on optimal inflation volatility. The latter, in particular, is shown to be related to the degree of trade openness in a U-shaped fashion, whereas exchange rate volatility is monotonically decreasing in openness. Copyright (c) 2008 The Ohio State University.

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