Measuring monetary policy

We develop a model-based, VAR methodology for measuring innovations in monetary policy and their macroeconomic effects. Using this framework, we are able to compare existing approaches to measuring monetary policy shocks and derive a new measure of policy innovations based directly on (possibly time-varying) estimates of the central bank's operating procedures. We also propose a new measure of the overall stance of policy (including the endogenous or systematic component) that is consistent with our approach.