The natural rate of interest and output, along with the inflation target for the US economy, were estimated from 1983 to 2005 using the New Keynesian framework. The researchers found that the inflation target was around 2% during the last decade, and there was significant variation in the natural rate of interest. By using a model-consistent estimate of the output gap, they discovered a small weight on the backward-looking component of the New Keynesian Phillips curve. This suggests that model-consistency is important for accurately representing marginal costs in the economy.