Comment on: ‘‘Usinga long-term interest rate as the monetary policy instrument’’$

The use of a long-term interest rate as the instrument of monetary policy would not have the advantage, sometimes claimed for it, of relaxing the constraint on what can be achieved by monetary policy when the zero lower bound on short-term interest rates is reached. The proposal would also seem an impractical one to implement. r 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved