4that during the period from 2002 to 2006 the U.S. federal funds rate was well below what a goodrule of thumb for U.S. monetary policy would have predicted. Figure 1 displays the actual fed-eral funds rate (solid line) and the counterfactual policy rate that would have prevailed if mon-etary policy had followed a standard Taylor rule (dashed line). Indeed, the interest rate impliedby the Taylor rule is well above the actual federal funds rate, starting from the second quarter of2002. Taylor (2007) argues that such a counterfactual policy rate would have contained the hous-ing market bubble; moreover, Taylor also supports the idea that deviating from this rule-basedmonetary policy framework has been a major factor in determining the likelihood and the severityof the 2007-09 crisis (Taylor, 2010).