Changes in the Federal Reserve Communication Strategy: A Structural Investigation

This paper structurally investigates the changes in the Fed's communication strategy since the mid‐1990s through the lens of anticipated and unanticipated disturbances to a Taylor rule. The anticipated disturbances are identified using Treasury bond yield data in estimating a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model with a term structure of interest rates. Our estimation results show that the Fed's decisions were unanticipated for market participants until 1999, but thereafter a larger portion of its future policy actions tended to be communicated in advance. We also find that the relative contribution of the anticipated monetary policy disturbances to macroeconomic fluctuations became larger after 1999. The bond yield data is indispensable to these results, since it contains crucial information on an expected future path of the federal funds rate.     

MONETARY POLICY INDICATORS AS PREDICTORS OF STOCK RETURNS

We explore the linkage between stock return predictability and the monetary sector by examining alternative proxies for monetary policy. Using two complementary methods, we document that failure to condition on the Fed's broad policy stance causes a substantial understatement in the ability of monetary policy measures to predict returns. Industry analyses suggest that cross‐industry return differences are also linked to changes in monetary conditions, as monetary policy has the strongest (weakest) relation with returns for cyclical (defensive) industries. Overall, we find that monetary conditions have a prominent and systematic relation with future stock returns, even in the presence of business conditions.     

U.S. Monetary Policy and International Bond Markets

This paper analyzes how U.S. monetary policy affects the pricing of dollar‐denominated sovereign debt. We document that yields on dollar‐denominated sovereign bonds are highly responsive to U.S. monetary policy surprises—during both the conventional and unconventional policy regimes—and that the passthrough of unconventional policy to foreign bond yields is, on balance, comparable to that of conventional policy. In addition, a conventional U.S. monetary easing (tightening) leads to a significant narrowing (widening) of credit spreads on sovereign bonds issued by countries with a speculative‐grade credit rating but has no effect on the corresponding weighted average of bilateral exchange rates for a basket of currencies from the same set of risky countries; this indicates that an unanticipated tightening of U.S. monetary policy widens credit spreads on risky sovereign debt directly through the financial channel, as opposed to indirectly through the exchange rate channel. During the unconventional policy regime, yields on both investment‐ and speculative‐grade sovereign bonds move one‐to‐one with policy‐induced fluctuations in yields on comparable U.S. Treasuries. We also examine whether the response of sovereign credit spreads to US monetary policy differs between policy easings and tightenings and find no evidence of such asymmetry.     

The Fed's Communications: Suggestions for Improvement

The chief economist of Berenberg Capital Markets proposes three broad ways of improving the Fed's communications: (1) establish a more systematic approach to achieving its dual mandate; (2) clarify the proper role of monetary policy in achieving those objectives by distinguishing what is within the scope of monetary policy from what is clearly beyond it; and (3) articulate the Fed's goals and role in achieving macro‐prudential risk management and financial stability. With these three ends in view, the author begins by urging FOMC members to refrain from making public comments immediately following government data releases and, when making public speeches and statements, to relate their comments on the economy to the Fed's dual mandate. The author also suggests three modifications of the Fed's official Policy Statement following FOMC meetings. First, each statement should start with an assessment of monetary policy and its consistency with achieving the Fed's statutory mandate, rather than the Fed's assessments of the economy and its subsectors with which such statements now begin. Second, the Fed should communicate separate explicit risk assessments of inflation and of the prospects for employment and the economy. (The Fed's current practice of sometimes dropping the risk assessments from statements and replacing them with nuanced language—for example, on changes in inflation and inflationary expectations—can be a source of confusion.) Third, all statements should discuss as clearly as possible the Fed's strategy for its balance sheet and unwind policy. The Fed's quarterly Summary of Economic Projections (SEPs) should be redesigned to include FOMC estimates of forecast uncertainties and what they imply for monetary policy, and such alternative forecasts should be presented in place of the current central tendency and range of forecasts. The redesigned SEPs should be (1) based on a rigorous Fed assessment of expected monetary policy under different situations and contingency planning, and (2) as transparent as possible about the Fed's economic and inflation outlooks, the uncertainties in forecasting, and the conditionality of monetary policy. An illustration is provided of the alternative SEPs that would replace the current “dot plots” and include the Fed's forecasts of nominal GDP, calculated confidence intervals around the FOMC's median forecasts, and three separate forecasts of the Fed's perceived appropriate Fed funds rate. Finally, the author views the “optimal solution” as a more systematic approach in which the Fed publishes a single forecast based on a model consistent with its dual mandate that shows how the appropriate Fed funds rate path would be expected to vary under different economic and inflation outcomes. Such an approach, by thus mapping likely monetary policy responses to alternative plausible economic and inflation outcomes, would increase the Fed's accountability as well as its transparency.     

EFFECT OF FED POLICY ACTIONS ON THE DEFAULT LIKELIHOOD OF COMMERCIAL BANKS

Using a measure of default likelihood based on an option pricing method, we provide evidence that Fed policy actions affect the financial distress of commercial banks. When the Fed increases (decreases) interest rates, the measure of default likelihood increases (decreases). We show that when the Fed uses a tight money policy, the increase in default likelihood is more pronounced for banks that have less capital, have greater financial leverage, are smaller, have fewer growth opportunities, and have lower asset quality. Additionally, the effects on bank default likelihood are more pronounced when the Fed's policy signals less concern about economic growth, as indicated by its bias toward further tightening, and when there is a market expectation of higher short‐term market rates in the future.     

Monetary Policy Implementation: Making Better and More Consistent Use of the Federal Reserve's Balance Sheet

Since December 2015, the Federal Reserve has operated a new “floor system” in which it brings about desired changes in its targeted federal funds rate by managing the interest rate it pays on bank reserves and other short‐term liabilities. The design of this new system reflects the tendency of Fed officials to view monetary policy as affecting the economy through Keynesian” interest rate channels. From this Keynesian perspective, policy actions that change the size of the balance sheet are seen as tools for influencing credit market conditions that operate in addition to and independently of the Fed's monetary policy stance. The alternative monetarist framework proposed by the author views monetary policy and its effects as operating through the interaction between money supply and demand. Use of this framework makes clear that, even under a floor system, monetary policy actions designed to affect the aggregate price level and the rate of inflation must be accompanied sooner or later by traditional open market operations that have implications for the size and composition of the Fed's balance sheet. Use of the monetarist framework also underscores the likelihood that the Fed, by paying interest on reserves, has unknowingly contributed to the restrictiveness of its own monetary policies since the financial crisis, a period during which inflation has run consistently below target. More generally, the monetarist framework downplays the importance of the zero lower interest rate bound and suggests that monetary policy could be conducted more effectively by adopting and adhering to a consistent, rule‐like manner during good times and bad.     

次贷危机后美联储非常规货币政策及退出机制分析——基于美联储资产负债表的视角

次贷危机发生后,很多国家中央银行都采取了大量的非常规货币政策来确保金融系统的稳定和促进经济增长,尤其以美联储的非常规货币政策最具代表性。虽然非常规货币政策复杂多变,但是通常在央行资产负债表中清晰记录。借助于美联储资产负债表,能够全面梳理次贷危机后美联储的非常规货币政策,有助于深入理解非常规货币政策的实施和退出机制。     

Ben Bernanke and Bagehot's Rules

Former Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke has claimed that the Fed's bank bailouts during the 2008 financial crisis were consistent with Walter Bagehot's rules for a lender of last resort. This paper demonstrates Bernanke's claims to be mistaken. First, we outline Bagehot's doctrine for a classical lender of last resort. Next, we discuss Bernanke's theory of bank bailouts and his statements regarding the Fed's role in the 2008 bank bailouts. Finally, we examine the bailouts and demonstrate that, contrary to Bernanke's claims, the Fed's actions were not consistent with Bagehot's rules for a lender of last resort.     

A Limited Central Bank

The President of the Philadelphia Federal Reserve Bank from 2006–2015 discusses the Fed's essential role as preserver of the currency's purchasing power and how the institution might be improved to better fulfill that role. To that end, the author proposes the imposition of four limits on the central bank that, by restricting its discretion, can be expected to improve outcomes and accountability.

• First, limit the Fed's monetary policy goals to a narrow mandate in which price stability is the sole, or at least the primary, objective;
• Second, limit the types of assets that the Fed can hold on its balance sheet to Treasury securities;
• Third, limit the Fed's discretion in monetary policymaking by requiring a systematic, rule‐like approach; and
• Fourth, limit the boundaries of its lender‐of‐last‐resort credit extension.

These changes, by creating a more limited central bank, would help preserve the central bank's independence, thereby improving the effectiveness of monetary policy. They would also make it easier for the public to hold the Fed accountable for its policy decisions.     

The Response of Equity Prices to Movements in Long‐Term Interest Rates Associated with Monetary Policy Statements: Before and After the Zero Lower Bound

Monetary policy actions since 2008 have influenced long‐term interest rates through forward guidance and quantitative easing. I propose a strategy to identify the comovement between interest rate and equity price movements induced by monetary policy when an observable representing policy changes is not available. A decline in long‐term interest rates induced by monetary policy statements has a larger positive effect on equity prices prior to 2009 than in the subsequent period. This change appears to reflect the impact of the zero lower bound on short‐term interest rates.     

How to Promote Fed Independence: Perspectives from Political Economy and History

In two short histories of the independence of the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank since its creation in 1913—the first with respect to the Fed's monetary policymaking, the second focused on its regulatory policymaking—the author shows that the range of the Fed's powers has varied greatly over time, and that changes in those powers have had major effects on the extent of Fed independence. Moreover, the shifts over time in Fed powers reflect, to a significant degree, conscious trade‐offs by Fed leaders. A large number of somewhat surprising Fed positions on important regulatory matters can be explained as more or less deliberate attempts to preserve the Fed's monetary powers from political interference by yielding some of its independence in exercising its regulatory authority. In a case involving one of the most destructive U.S. financial regulatory policies, the Fed's effective neutrality on, and thus failure to support, the elimination of restrictions on interstate branch banking is seen as contributing to the chronic instability of the U.S. banking system, which has suffered some 20 major crises since the early 1800s (as compared to the crisis‐free Canadian system, with its nationwide banking from its inception). The Fed's reluctance to intervene is attributed to its unwillingness to antagonize powerful Congressional supporters of state banking interests and, more generally, to a “game of bank bargains” that can be seen at work in the political economy of virtually all countries. In more recent times, the most costly episode in this time‐honored game features a series of implicit or, in some cases, explicit agreements between large U.S. banks and urban activist groups—under the aegis of the Community Reinvestment Act, and with the oversight and implicit blessing of the Fed—to make on the order of $4.6 trillion loans to “subprime” borrowers in exchange for the activists’ (and the Fed's) support in Congressional merger hearings. The resulting nationwide debasement of mortgage underwriting standards and sheer volume of “toxic assets,” in combination with clearly inadequate capital requirements (which the Fed also failed to correct), are viewed as if not the principal cause of the crisis, a far bigger contributor than, say, the Fed's widely criticized unwillingness to tighten monetary policy in the early 2000s. To prevent the Fed from continuing to sacrifice its independence in regulatory matters to preserve its freedom to conduct monetary policy, the author proposes that authority for regulatory and monetary policy be vested in two separate regulatory bodies. If carried out, such a policy change would enact a proposal made by then Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson in 2008, just before the global financial crisis hit.     

Monetary policy matters: Evidence from new shocks data

The evidence suggests that monetary policy post 1988 became more forward-looking, invalidating the identifying assumptions in conventional methods of measuring monetary policy's effects, leading to spurious and unlikely results for this period. We propose a new identification scheme that uses factors extracted from Fed Funds futures to measure exogenous changes in policy. Using this shock series in a VAR, we recover the contractionary effect of monetary tightening on output. Moreover, we find that as much as half of the variability in output was driven by monetary policy shocks, and that there is a mild price puzzle.     

The effects of U.S. quantitative easing on South Africa

This paper investigates the impact of the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy on the economy of South Africa, particularly during the period of quantitative easing and thereafter from 2009 to 2018. A VAR model, including South Africa’s inflation, output, a stock market index, exchange rate, and South Africa’s policy rate is examined to determine the impact of the Federal Reserve’s actions. Our results show that the Federal Reserve’s quantitative easing programs had only slight overall effects on South Africa’s economy. However, the way monetary policy is measured appears to have important effects for studies of international monetary spillovers as the results differ depending on the type of monetary policy measure used.     

A Model of Monetary Policy Shocks for Financial Crises and Normal Conditions

Deteriorating economic conditions in late 2008 led the Federal Reserve to lower the target federal funds rate to near zero, inject liquidity through novel facilities, and engage in large‐scale asset purchases. The combination of conventional and unconventional policy measures prevents using the effective federal funds rate to assess the effects of monetary policy beyond 2008. We employ a broad monetary aggregate to elicit the effects of monetary policy shocks both before and after 2008. Our estimates align well with major changes in the Fed's asset purchase programs and yield responses that are free from price, output, and liquidity puzzles that plague other approaches.     

美国量化宽松货币政策对中国溢出效应研究——基于贸易渠道分析

基于2008年10月~2014年3月的30个工业行业出口面板数据,运用FGLS方法,根据不同工业行业要素密集度考量美国量化宽松货币政策对我国工业出口贸易的影响。结果表明,美国量化宽松货币政策通过人民币汇率对我国资本密集型、劳动密集型和技术密集型行业的出口呈现出显著负面影响,通过国际大宗商品价格指数对我国劳动密集型和技术密集型行业出口产生显著负面影响,美国实际工业产出对我国三类工业行业出口呈现出显著正面影响。     

Estimating Monetary Policy Rules When Nominal Interest Rates Are Stuck at Zero

Did the Federal Reserve's response to economic fundamentals change with the onset of the Global Financial Crisis? Estimation of a monetary policy rule to answer this question faces a censoring problem since the interest rate target has been set at the zero lower bound since late 2008. Surveys by forecasters allow us to sidestep the problem and to use conventional regressions and break tests. We find that, in the opinion of forecasters, the Fed's inflation response has decreased and the unemployment response has increased, which suggests that the Federal Reserve's commitment to stable inflation has become weaker in the eyes of the professional forecasters.     

What determines the stock market's reaction to monetary policy statements?

We find that information communicated through monetary policy statements has important business cycle dependent implications for stock prices. For example, during periods of economic expansion, stocks tend to respond negatively to announcements of higher rates ahead. In recessions, however, we find a strong positive reaction of stocks to seemingly similar signals of future monetary tightening. We provide evidence that the state dependence in the stock market's response is explained by information about the expected equity premium and future corporate cash flows contained in monetary policy statements. We also show state dependence in the average stock returns on days of scheduled FOMC meetings and in the impact of monetary policy statements on stock and bond return volatility.     

美联储停止缩表的原因、影响及中国对策

近期美联储停止缩表引起广泛关注。美联储停止缩表主要有以下几个原因：一是货币需求大幅上升,二是美联储控制短期利率的能力出现下降,三是美国经济前景存在不确定性。此外,美联储停止缩表还有助于继续发挥财政作用、改善货币政策传导效率、降低污名效应、降低私人部门安全资产的供应以及降低对美联储信用风险和银行清算风险。美联储停止缩表对美国和中国都会产生十分广泛的影响。对美国的影响主要有：资产价格将获得支撑、投资可能出现过热、通胀可能出现阶段性上升、金融风险可能加大、美联储独立性可能受到影响、可能加剧收益率曲线倒挂;对中国的影响主要有：人民币汇率压力有望缓解、资产价格可能上升、短期资本流入可能增多。因此,中国货币政策应保持定力,密切关注国际资本流动趋势的变化,防范资产价格暴涨风险,同时,应加强人民币汇率风险管理。     

Deposit rate ceilings and monetary transmission in the US

Establishing the existence and nature of changes in the conduct and transmission of monetary policy is key in understanding the remarkable macroeconomic performance of the US since the mid-1980s. This paper presents evidence on a phenomenon of disintermediation occurring during the major recessions in the 1960s and 1970s, but absent ever since, and shows that disintermediation is closely linked to the existence of deposit rate ceilings under regulation Q. In a monetary DSGE model that incorporates deposit rate ceilings as occasionally binding constraints, the regulation alters the behavior of money aggregates and exacerbates the drop in economic activity following a monetary tightening. The results of a threshold VAR lend support to the main theoretical predictions of the model.