This study disentangles policy parameters from those describing private sector behavior by simultaneously estimating an empirical model for in ation and output along with a loss function for the last three Federal Reserve administrations. Three important results emerge: First, the Federal Reserve appears to put more emphasis on price stability than output stability when the entire sample is considered. Second, and more importantly, the loss function parameters exhibit structural break at the time Paul Volcker was appointed chairman. The accommodative characteristics of monetary policy were replaced with a more active policy towards controlling in ation. Finally, interest rate smoothing is found to be an important feature of the monetary policymaking process for all three administrations. ?

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In the literature, there is no consensus about the direction of the effects of inflation uncertainty on interest rates. This paper states that such a result may stem from differentiation in the sources of the uncertainties and analyzes the effects of different types of inflation uncertainties on a set of interest rates for the UK within an interest rate rule framework. Three types of inflation uncertainties -impulse uncertainty, structural uncertainty and steady-state uncertainty -are derived by using a time-varying parameter model with a Generalized Autoregressive Conditional Heteroskedasticity specification. It is shown that the impulse uncertainty is positively and the structural uncertainty is negatively correlated with the interest rates. Moreover, these two uncertainties are important to explain short-term interest rates for the period of inflation targeting era. However, this time, the impulse uncertainty is negatively and the structural uncertainty is positively correlated with the overnight interbank interest rates, which is consistent with the general characteristic of the inflation targeting regimes. Lastly, the evidence concerning the effect of the steady-state inflation uncertainty on interest rates is not conclusive.

The reported study has two purposes: first, it attempts to improve the literature on foreign exchange interventions of the central banks for the emerging market economies, an area not previously studied in detail. The Turkish economy in the post-crisis period constitutes a good example in this context. Second, it proposes a new methodology, a time-varying parameter model, to analyse the effectiveness of the foreign exchange interventions. When the results from such an exercise are compared with those obtained from an event-study analysis, it is found that purchasebased interventions seem to be successful, especially after stabilization of the financial markets. In that sense, an asymmetry is detected regarding the effectiveness of interventions. Concerning the relationship between interest rates and exchange rates, it is found that the uncovered interest rate parity condition operates in an unconventional way, supporting the views put forward by recent emerging markets literature.

"We seek to demonstrate the variations in the exchange rate pass-through (ERPT) and identify the shift in the price-setting behavior by placing the emphasis on the implemented exchange rate and monetary policy regimes. Having a history of several distinct monetary regimes, Turkey exhibits a genuine laboratory in this respect. Our empirical results reveal that the pass-through from exchange rates to domestic prices has changed dramatically. We detect breaks in the pass-through coefficients at three episodes, all of which coincide with a shift in monetary/exchange rate regime, lending support to the view that monetary and exchange rate regimes might be among the major determinants of the ERPT process". ("JEL" C51, E31, E58) Copyright 2007 Western Economic Association International.