Optimal Monetary Policy with Countercyclical Credit Spreads

We study optimal monetary policy in a New‐Keynesian Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium (DSGE) model with a credit channel and relationship lending in banking. We show that borrowers' bank‐specific (deep) habits give rise to countercyclical credit spreads, which, in turn, make optimal monetary policy depart substantially from price stability, under both discretion and commitment. Our analysis shows that the welfare costs of setting monetary policy under discretion (with respect to the optimal Ramsey plan) and of using simpler suboptimal policy rules are strictly increasing in the magnitude of deep habits in credit markets and market power in banking.     

The Interaction of Monetary and Macroprudential Policies

I analyze a New Keynesian dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model where the financing of productive investment is affected by a moral hazard problem. I solve for jointly Ramsey‐optimal monetary and macroprudential policies. I find that when a financial friction is present in addition to the standard nominal friction, the optimal policy can replicate the first‐best allocation if the social planner can conduct both monetary and macroprudential policy. Using monetary policy alone is not enough: a policy trade‐off between stabilizing inflation and output gap emerges. When policy follows simple rules, the source of fluctuations is relevant for the choice of the appropriate policy mix.     

Monetary Policy,Asset Prices,and Liquidity in Over‐the‐Counter Markets

We develop a model where agents can allocate their wealth between a liquid asset, which can be used to purchase consumption goods, and an illiquid asset, which represents a better store of value. Should a consumption opportunity arise, agents may visit a frictional “over‐the‐counter” secondary asset market where they can exchange illiquid for liquid assets. We characterize how monetary policy affects both the issue price and the secondary market price of the asset. We also show that, in contrast to conventional wisdom, search and bargaining frictions in the secondary asset market can improve welfare if inflation is low.     

Are Financial Constraints Priced? Evidence from Firm Fundamentals and Stock Returns

Using comprehensive firm‐ and aggregate‐level data, this paper studies the real and financial implications of capital market imperfections. We first examine whether financially constrained firms' business fundamentals (capital spending and operating earnings) are more sensitive to macroeconomic movements than unconstrained firms' fundamentals. We then examine whether financial constraint “return factors” respond to macroeconomic shocks in tandem with the responses from business fundamentals. The evidence in this paper points to financial constraints affecting both fundamental quantities and asset returns.     

Liquidity in Frictional Asset Markets

On November 14–15, 2008, the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland hosted a conference on “Liquidity in frictional asset markets.” In this paper, we review the literature on asset markets with trading frictions in both finance and monetary theory using a simple search‐theoretic model, and we discuss the papers presented at the conference in the context of this literature. We will show the diversity of topics covered in this literature, for example, the dynamics of housing and credit markets, the functioning of payment systems, optimal monetary policy and the cost of inflation, the role of banks, the effect of informational frictions on asset trading.     

Shadow Banks and Macroeconomic Instability

We develop a macroeconomic model in which commercial banks can offload risky loans to a “shadow” banking sector, and financial intermediaries trade in securitized assets. The model can account both for the business cycle comovement between output, traditional bank, and shadow bank credit, and for the behavior of macroeconomic variables in a liquidity crisis centered on shadow banks. We find that following a liquidity shock, stabilization policy aimed solely at the market in securitized assets is relatively ineffective.     

Flexible inflation targeting and financial stability: Is it enough to stabilize inflation and output?

We investigate empirically whether a central bank can promote financial stability by stabilizing inflation and output, and whether additional stabilization of asset prices and credit growth would enhance financial stability in particular. We employ an econometric model of the Norwegian economy to investigate the performance of simple interest rate rules that allow a response to asset prices and credit growth, in addition to inflation and output. We find that output stabilization tends to improve financial stability. Additional stabilization of house prices, equity prices and/or credit growth enhances stability in both inflation and output, but has mixed effects on financial stability. In general, financial stability as measured by e.g., asset price volatility improves, while financial stability measured by indicators that depend directly on interest rates deteriorates, mainly because of higher interest rate volatility owing to a more active monetary policy.     

Price‐Level Targeting and Stabilization Policy

We construct a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model to study optimal monetary stabilization policy. Prices are fully flexible and money is essential for trade. Our main result is that if the central bank pursues a price‐level target, it can control inflation expectations and improve welfare by stabilizing short‐run shocks to the economy. The optimal policy involves smoothing nominal interest rates that effectively smooths consumption across states.     

Monetary Policy and the Asset Risk‐Taking Channel

How important is the risk‐taking channel for monetary policy? To answer this question, we develop and estimate a quantitative monetary DSGE model where banks choose excessively risky investments, due to an agency problem that distorts banks' incentives. As the real interest rate declines, these distortions become more important and excessive risk taking increases, lowering the efficiency of investment. We show theoretically that this novel transmission channel generates a new monetary policy trade‐off between inflation and real interest rate stabilization, whereby the central bank may prefer to tolerate greater inflation volatility in order to lower excessive risk taking.     

Optimal Fiscal Policy Rules in a Monetary Union

This paper investigates the importance of fiscal policy in providing macroeconomic stabilization in a monetary union. We use a microfounded New Keynesian model of a monetary union, which incorporates persistence in inflation and non-Ricardian consumers, and derive optimal simple rules for fiscal authorities. We find that fiscal policy can play an important role in reacting to inflation, output, and the terms of trade, but that not much is lost if national fiscal policy is restricted to react, on the one hand, to national differences in inflation and, on the other hand, to either national differences in output or changes in the terms of trade. However, welfare is reduced if national fiscal policy responds only to output, ignoring inflation.     

International spillovers of monetary policy: Lessons from Chile,Korea, and Poland

In this paper, we assess evidence on international monetary policy spillovers to domestic bank lending in Chile, Korea, and Poland, using confidential bank-level data and different measures of monetary policy shocks in relevant currency areas. These three emerging market economies are small and open, their banking systems do not have significant presence overseas, and they can be considered as price takers in the world economy. Such features allow for better identification of binding financial constraints and foreign monetary policy shocks. We find that the monetary policy shocks spill over into domestic bank lending, modifying the degree to which financial frictions tighten or relax, and this evidence is consistent with international bank lending and portfolio channels.     

Implications of habit formation for optimal monetary policy

We study the implications for optimal monetary policy of introducing habit formation in consumption into a general equilibrium model with sticky prices. Habit formation affects the model's endogenous dynamics through its effects on both aggregate demand and households’ supply of output. We show that the objective of monetary policy consistent with welfare maximization includes output stabilization, as well as inflation and output gap stabilization. We find that the variance of output increases under optimal policy, even though it acquires a higher implicit weight in the welfare function. We also find that a simple interest rate rule nearly achieves the welfare-optimal allocation, regardless of the degree of habit formation. In this rule, the optimal responses to inflation and the lagged interest rate are both declining in the size of the habit, although super-inertial policies remain optimal.     

Monetary Policy and Asset Prices: A Mechanism Design Approach

We investigate the effects of monetary policy on asset prices in economies where assets are traded periodically in bilateral meetings. The trading mechanism is designed to maximize social welfare taking as given the frictions in the environment and monetary policy. We show that asset price “bubbles” emerge in a constrained‐efficient monetary equilibrium only if liquidity is abundant and the first‐best allocation is implementable. In contrast, if liquidity is scarce, assets are priced at their fundamental value in any constrained‐efficient monetary equilibrium, in which case an increase in inflation has no effect on asset prices, but it reduces output and welfare.     

The conditioning role of performance on the bank risk-taking channel of monetary policy: Evidence from a multiple-tool regime

The study investigates how monetary policy affects bank risk-taking under a multiple-tool regime of Vietnam during 2007–2018. Particularly, we also consider the conditioning role of bank performance, broken down by bank profitability and cost efficiency, in this nexus. Using both dynamic and static panel models, we show that the liquidity injection initiated by the central bank’s asset purchases induces banks to take more risks, captured by the traditional Z-score and two alternative measures of credit risk. However, monetary policy easing through decreased interest rates is beneficial to the credit portfolio and financial stability of banks, which therefore challenges the functioning of the bank risk-taking channel. This startling result is robust across three different interest rate measures, including lending rates, refinance rates and rediscount rates. Further analysis reveals that our observed effects are alleviated for banks with higher performance — i.e., more profitable and efficient banks. This in-depth finding offers more insights into the “search for yield” incentive, based on the theory of information asymmetry and the two competing hypotheses of “bad management” and “cost skimping”.     

Price Stability in Economies with Habit Persistence

This paper shows that the divine‐coincidence does not hold in a sticky price model with external habit if a time‐varying tax rate on labor income is not implemented to fully eliminate the time‐varying distortions associated with external habit and monopoly power in goods market. The required labor income tax rate is inversely related to the risk‐free real interest rate and the markup in the goods market, but it is proportional to the degree of external habit. Under this circumstance, the optimal monetary policy commands a countercyclical interest rate, having a perfect negative correlation with tax rate in the sticky price model with external habit. If a time‐invariant tax is the only fiscal instrument, then the degree of external habit entails a gap between the private marginal rate of substitution between consumption and labor and the social marginal rate of substitution, generating an endogenous trade‐off between the stabilization of welfare‐relevant output gap and inflation. Under this circumstance, price stability is not the optimal policy. The monetary policy authority should optimally try to undo the time‐varying distortions associated with external habit and monopoly power in goods market by deviating from price stability.     

Rethinking monetary policy after the crisis

This lecture examines how the recent global financial crisis changes our thinking about how monetary policy should be conducted. It starts with a discussion of the science and practice of monetary policy before the crisis and then uses the lessons from the crisis to argue how the practice of monetary policy should be rethought along six dimensions: flexible inflation targeting, response to asset price bubbles, dichotomy between monetary policy and financial stability policy, risk management and gradualism, fiscal dominance, and forward guidance.     

The Advantage of Flexible Targeting Rules

This paper investigates the consequences of debt stabilization for inflation targeting. If the fiscal authority holds constant the real value of debt at maturity under strict inflation targeting, the equilibrium dynamics are indeterminate for a wide range of parameters and steady‐state fiscal stances. “Flexible” targeting rules that include a concern for stabilization of the output gap can restore determinacy of the equilibrium. Flexible inflation targeting appears to be more robust than flexible debt targeting to alternative parameterizations. The fiscal authority can prevent indeterminacy under strict targeting rules by committing to hold constant debt net of interest rate spending.     

A Historical Analysis of the Taylor Curve

Taylor (1979) shows that there is a permanent trade‐off between the volatilities of the output gap and inflation. Although a number of papers argue that the so‐called Taylor curve is a policy menu, we use it as an efficiency locus to gauge the appropriateness of monetary policy. We examine the efficiency of U.S. monetary policy from 1875 onward by measuring the orthogonal distance between the observed volatilities of the output gap and inflation from the Taylor curve. We also identify time periods in which the variability of the U.S. economy changed by observing shifts in this efficiency frontier.     

What Has—and Has Not—Been Learned about Monetary Policy in a Low‐Inflation Environment? A Review of the 2000s

As the world economy recovers from the worst financial crisis and most severe global slump in 75 years, policymakers, regulators, and academics are focusing intensely and appropriately on lessons to be learned for monetary policy. There are certainly many questions to answer. Among the most important are: Are inflation expectations “well anchored”? What, if any, influence should asset quantities and prices have on monetary policy? Do we have sufficient confidence in our alternative monetary policy tools to stabilize the economy at the zero lower bound?