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The article focuses on the book "Monetary Policy Rules," edited by John B. Taylor. It contains papers by seventeen authors from a conference about monetary policy. Most of the papers present models in which monetary policy can be evaluated, and they evaluate a common set of monetary policy rules. The editor's introduction provides a summary of the volume and of the implications of the cross-model comparisons of the effects of the various policy rules, and his own contribution studies the historical evolution of monetary policy rules and their effects. The book is about the Taylor rule. This is a policy rule that specifies changes in the central bank's interest rate according to what is happening to two variables, real output and inflation. The conclusions from the cross-model comparison of rules are as follow. A Taylor rule, like what is estimated by ordinary least squares from post-1982 U.S. data, performs well in most models. Performance can be improved, in terms of inflation and the variability of output by making the coefficients in the Taylor rule larger, so that interest rates are more responsive to inflation and the output gap.

This second volume of the National Bureau's studies of interest rates contains four new studies concerned with the structure of interest rates and four reprints (or adaptations) of previously published work. The reprinted papers include Cagan's well-known study of changes in the cyclical behavior of interest rates and a companion piece by Diller on the seasonal variation of interest rates. The two remaining previously published papers are Kessel's seminal study of "liquidity premiums" in the term structure and Diller's important essay which analyzes market expectations. Since these essays have already received considerable comment and discussion, I will concentrate on the new studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a review of the book "The Function and Analysis of Capital Market Rates," by James C. Van Horne.

Reviews the book 'The Theory of Interest Rates,' edited by F.H. Hahn and F.P.R. Brechling.

Reviews the book "The Theory of Interest Rates," edited by F. H. Hahn and F. P. R. Brechling.

Cagan's study is an attempt to provide answers to these questions by testing alternative theoretical hypotheses concerning the ways that changes in the rate of money stock growth influence various short-term and long-term, public and private nominal interest rates. Further, he builds and tests a model that seeks to elucidate the intertemporal adjustment of nominal income vis-a-vis interest rates in response to changes in the monetary growth rate. Preliminary versions of much of the material in the book were published in professional journals from 1966-69. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This slim volume presents four essays in which the authors attempt to chart the course of interest rates for the next five-to-ten years. The consensus is mildly bullish, and the individual contributors differ primarily with respect to the skill with which they tackle their assignment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reviews the book "Theory and Application of the Interest Rate," by Eli Schwartz.

Reviews the book "Theory and Application of the Interest Rate," by Eli Schwartz.

Lavoie concludes this short but telling chapter with a critical analysis of Quantitative Easing and of the "flow system" adopted by some central banks (pp. 351-355). This substantial volume reprints 20 of Marc Lavoie's essays on post-Keynesian monetary theory and policy originally published between 1984 and 2018. This is Lavoie's chapter on "money, credit and central banking in Post-Keynesian economics" taken from the 2011 I Modern Guide to Keynesian Macroeconomics and Economic Policies i , edited by Eckhard Hein and Engelbert Stockhammer. [Extracted from the article]

The circumstance that the political legacy may be undervalued when tested against reality is attributable to an increase in the absolute value of public debt, which may result in a reduction in the debt/GDP ratio due to inflation or debt monetization. Following O'Driscoll ([10]), Salsman writes "Ricardo's debt theory is over examined today due largely to the formalism of "Ricardian equivalence", a doctrine Ricardo discussed but rejected." Although Salsman's reading of Keynes and the Keynesians in terms of discontinuity has a wide audience in the literature, it conflicts with Buchanan and Wagner ([3]), who see Keynes and the Keynesians as tightly linked. In fact, the increase in the debt/GDP ratio may be the result of either a low economic growth and an increase in deficit, or of debt-reduction policies through large tax increases. [Extracted from the article]

Reviews the book "The Term Structure of Interest Rates: Financial Intermediaries and Debt Management," by Jacob B. Michaelsen.

Reviews the book "A History of Interest Rates," by Sidney Homer.

The article reviews the book "A Simple Binomial No-Arbitrage Model of the Term Structure: With Applications to the Valuation of Interest-Sensitive Options and Interest-Rate Swaps," by Thomas J. O'Brien.

Reviews the book "Estimating and Interpreting the Yield Curve," by Nicola Anderson, Francis Breedon and Mark Deacon.

Bonello's overall purpose is to determine which interest-rate forecasting model (he calls them interest-rate expectations mechanisms) provides the "best" explanation of expected interest rates, within the context of the PET. His testing procedures consist of correlation and regression analyses and specification-error tests. To my knowledge, the latter type of testing has never before been employed in term-structure research and for this Bonello is to be commended. He labels a model as "correct" if it is the only model free of specification error and consistent with the data. The tests are designed in such a way that they allow for the possibility that different models are employed in forecasting rates for the different maturities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present volume is intended to serve two purposes. The primary purpose is to chronicle the history of the greatest bear market in bond-market history, from 1946 (a time when the lowest yields of modern history were recorded) to 1969 (when unprecedentedly high levels of rates were reached). "A history of interest rates should not fail to be dramatic," wrote Homer in his earlier volume, and the present history lives up to this standard. The book is interestingly written and it is especially useful for a valuable appendix containing time series of a variety of bond yields collected by Homer, Johannesen, and their associates of the investment firm of Salomon Brothers and Hutzler. These series are far superior to alternative yield series currently available. They are constructed from over-the-counter quotations (where most bond trading actually occurs) rather than from bid prices on the organized exchanges (where quotations are often nominal rather than real). Moreover, the series are far more homogeneous with respect to quality, bond coupons, call provisions, and special features, than those of Moody's Investors Service, which are usually used by economists in empirical work. Most importantly, the authors have compiled time series of new-issue yields. These series are far more responsive to bond-market conditions than existing time series of yields of "seasoned" issues, and the Homer-Johannesen data would appear to have many uses by economists in empirical work on interest rates and corporate investment behavior. The second purpose of the book is to analyze and account for the interrelationships among the different types of yields. Homer and Johannesen study the relationship between the yields of many different debt instruments of the same maturity. There are discussions of historical yield spreads between utility bonds, industrials, and governments; new issues and seasoned bonds; low-coupon and high-coupon issues; tax exempts and governments; high-quality ... [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This volume contains six essays--three by Phillip Cagan and one each by Jack M. Guttentag, Royal Shipp, and Mark W. Frankena and the late Joseph W. Conard. All of this research has arisen out of the NBER's study of interest rates. As the editors indicate, these six essays exhibit considerable diversity in approach, method, and objectives. Three of the essays, although commendable for their scholarship, would seem to be of limited interest to the general reader. Both Guttentag and Shipp report and discuss much new and useful data about mortgage markets. Guttentag deals with residential mortgages and Shipp deals with income-property mortgages. Conard and Frankena analyze the small but persistent yield differential between new corporate bonds and comparable seasoned issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reviews the book "The Cyclical Behavior of the Term Structure of Interest Rates," by Reuben A. Kessel.

Reviews the non-fiction book 'Efficient Methods for Valuing Interest Rate Derivatives,' by Antoon Pelsser.

Reviews the book "Changes in the Cyclical Behavior of Interest Rates," by Phillip Caoan.

Jean-Laurent Rosenthal, a distinguished economic historian, and R. Bin Wong, an eminent world historian and specialist on imperial China, have collaborated in this effort to shed light on the causes of the eighteenth-century economic divergence of China and Europe. This book has many of the virtues one would expect from such a collaboration – keen insights into comparative history, explicit models of economic relationships, and novel ideas regarding causation. Yet it also has some defects that reflect this combination: at some points in their argument, the logic of models seems to outweigh historical facts. At other points, details of history that don't fit the models, such as the history of productivity gains in agriculture in imperial China, are neglected. I shall start with the virtues of their arguments, and then discuss some particulars that lead me to question their view. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article presents a review of the book "A History of Interest Rates," 2nd ed., by Sidney Homer.

This book presents the results of a careful examination of the seasonal variation of numerous long-term and short-term interest rates in the United States during the period since World War II. The book includes a thorough discussion of the procedures used to estimate the seasonal components (Chapter 2), a description of the evidence of seasonality in a number of interest-rate series (Chapter 3), and an analysis of several determinants of the amplitude of the seasonals (Chapter 4). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reviews the book "Efficient Methods for Valuing Interest Rate Derivatives," by Antoon Pelsser.

The article reviews the book "Easy Money: A Study of Low Interest Rates, Their Bearing on the Outlook for the Gold Standard and on the Problem of Curbing a Boom," by Lionel D. Edie.

Reviews the book "Oxford Studies in the Price Mechanism," edited by T. Wilson and P.W.S. Wilson.

Reviews the book "A History of Interest Rates," by Sidney Homer and Richard Sylla.

Reviews the book "Keynes' General Theory of Interest: A Reconsideration," by Fiona C. Maclachlan.

Reviews the book "Questioni di Teoria e Tecnica Monetaria," by Amedeo Gambino.