Monetary Policy and Short-term Interest Rates: An Efficient Markets-Rational Expectations Approach

This paper is an application of efficient markets-rationael xpectations theory to analyze empirically the relationship of money supply growth and short-term interest rates, a hotly debated issue in the literature. This approach has the advantage over earlier research on this subject in that it imposes a theoretical structure that allows easier interpretation of the empirical results as well as more powerful statistical tests. The empirical results uniformly do not support the proposition that increases in money growth are correlated with declines in short rates.     

Are expectations of inflation rational? or Is variation of the expected real interest rate unpredictable?

The joint hypothesis developed and tested in this paper is that the nominal interest rate is a rational expectation of the real interest rate plus the inflation rate and that variation of the expected real interest rate is unpredictable on the basis of information used in the test. This test is applied to quarterly data on three-month United States Treasury bills of 1954 to 1973. The information used in the tests includes, besides past interest rates and inflation rates, past growth rates of the source base, the money supply, and real GNP. Some of the tests allow for a positive marginal tax rate, which changes the results little. The hypothesis is generally consistent with the data, which provides support for the proposition that predictable changes of the money supply do not affect expected real interest rates over periods as short as a quarter.     

货币供应量、利率与银行系统性金融风险——基于CoVaR方法的实证研究

在常态化疫情防控的背景下,商业银行系统性金融风险有上升迹象,这对央行实施货币政策工具和力度的把握提出了更高要求。本文利用条件在险值模型检验了我国货币供应量、利率与银行系统性金融风险的关系。研究结果表明,货币供应量和利率与银行系统性风险之间的关系不是线性的,而是U型的,即存在最优的货币供应量和利率能够使商业银行的系统性金融风险最低。当货币供应量和利率小于这个最优组合时,增加货币供应量和提高利率能够有效降低商业银行的系统性金融风险;而当货币供应量和利率大于这个最优组合时,增加货币供应量和提高利率反而会增加银行系统性金融风险,进而降低商业银行的金融稳定性。     

Money,Asset Prices,and the Liquidity Premium

This paper examines the effect of monetary policy on the market value of the liquidity services that financial assets provide, known as the liquidity premium. The theory predicts that money supply and nominal interest rates have positive effects on the liquidity premium, but asset supply has a negative effect. The empirical analysis with U.S. data confirms the theoretical predictions. The theory also proposes that the liquidity properties of assets can cause negative nominal yields when the money holding cost is low and liquid assets are scarce. The suggestive empirical findings in Switzerland to support this theoretical result are presented.     

International market response to announcements of US macroeconomic data

This paper presents empirical evidence relating the announcement effects of US money supply and inflation (CPI and PPI) to Eurocurrency interest rates and the foreign currency markets (both spot and forward) for seven industrial countries over the period 1977–1982. The results indicate that unanticipated components of announced changes in money supply have a significant positive effect on Eurocurrency interest rates and a negative effect (implying dollar appreciation) on the spot exchange rates. Unanticipated changes in PPI have a positive significant effect on interest rates, a small surprisingly negative impact on spot exchange rates, and a positive effect on gold prices. The CPI has no effect on either market.     

Instrument instability and short-term monetary control

The literature on instrument instability tends support to a policy of smoothing interest rates: it contends that rigid adherence to a monetary rule would bring about explosive interest-rate movements. This contention is examined using a simple model which incorporates rational expectations; the results suggest that instrument instability is associated with interest-rate smoothing rather than with short-term control of the money supply. Furthermore, policy that attempts to stabilize interest rates may itself account for empirical findings which have hitherto been viewed as evidence that instrument instability would occur if the money supply were closely controlled.     

Financial innovation,new assets,and the behavior of money demand

Two fundamental changes in US banking regulations have affected the behavior of money demand (M1). The first authorized checkable deposit accounts paying explicit interest rates. The second allowed these rates to be market determined. The theoretical literature does not directly address the impact of these events, suggesting that they are primarily an empirical issue. However, the empirical literature has yet to agree on the impact of financial innovation on money demand; for example, several studies report an increase in the elasticity of money demand, several others report a decline. This paper uses a Lancaster-type choice model to analyze formally the expected impact of these two changes on the demand for money. The model derives specific conditions under which (i) the demand for money increases as new assets are introduced and (ii) the impact of either the introduction of new assets or the elimination of interest rate restrictions on the elasticity of money demand.     

Can banks individually create money out of nothing? — The theories and the empirical evidence

This paper presents the first empirical evidence in the history of banking on the question of whether banks can create money out of nothing. The banking crisis has revived interest in this issue, but it had remained unsettled. Three hypotheses are recognised in the literature. According to the financial intermediation theory of banking, banks are merely intermediaries like other non-bank financial institutions, collecting deposits that are then lent out. According to the fractional reserve theory of banking, individual banks are mere financial intermediaries that cannot create money, but collectively they end up creating money through systemic interaction. A third theory maintains that each individual bank has the power to create money ‘out of nothing’ and does so when it extends credit (the credit creation theory of banking). The question which of the theories is correct has far-reaching implications for research and policy. Surprisingly, despite the longstanding controversy, until now no empirical study has tested the theories. This is the contribution of the present paper. An empirical test is conducted, whereby money is borrowed from a cooperating bank, while its internal records are being monitored, to establish whether in the process of making the loan available to the borrower, the bank transfers these funds from other accounts within or outside the bank, or whether they are newly created. This study establishes for the first time empirically that banks individually create money out of nothing. The money supply is created as ‘fairy dust’ produced by the banks individually, "out of thin air".     

The Effects of Inflation and Money Supply Announcements on Interest Rates

This paper examines the impact of the money supply and inflation rate announcements on interest rates. Survey data on expectations of the money supply and consumer and producer price indexes are used to distinguish anticipated and unanticipated components of the announcements. This distinction is used to test for the efficiency of the financial market response to the announcements of new information. The results indicate that the unanticipated components of the announced changes in the Producers Price Index and in the money supply have an immediate positive effect on short-term interest rates. The Consumer Price Index announcement has no apparent effect. There is no evidence of a delayed announcement effect. However, there is some indication of a liquidity effect of the money supply change on interest rates. This takes place when reserves are changing and several weeks prior to the information announcement.     

基于货币因素的我国大宗商品价格波动影响机理——铜市场实证

基于长期与短期两个视角,采用2001~2013年的月度数据,通过构建协整检验、广义脉冲响应函数及方差分解等方法,考察了主要货币因素：货币供应量与利率对我国期铜价格的动态影响,结果表明：货币供应量、利率与期铜价格之间存在长期均衡关系;在短期内,货币供应量对期铜价格具有正向影响,而利率对期铜价格的影响总体为负,且利率的影响作用相对较大。     

International evidence on misspecification of the standard money demand equation

This paper tests the proposition that the interest rate in the standard money demand equation acts as a proxy for the expected change in interest rates. If this is true, the interest elasticity in the standard equation will depend on the expectations process for interest rates. Using cross-country data, we find that there does exist a relationship between the observed interest elasticity in the standard equation and the predictability of future interest rates from current interest rates.     

International reserves and global interest rates

In this paper we study the relationship between foreign currency international reserve holdings and global interest rates. To guide empirical work we solve a simple, small open-economy model with money, where the central bank manages international reserves to smooth inflation over time. This model shows that changes in interest rates are positively related to the target level of reserves. As a consequence interest rate hikes increase reserve transfers, defined as the change in international reserves net of the interest earned on reserves. Using quarterly data for 75 countries between 2000 and 2013, we document a positive relationship between interest-rate changes and reserve transfers as a share of GDP, that is consistent with the model.     

Deficits,money and inflation

This paper examines the interrelationships between monetary and fiscal policy. Specifically, it seeks to determine whether Government budget deficits influence monetary growth. Using a money supply model originally developed by Barro, we find that deficits have had a significant impact on the growth of the U.S. money supply throughout most of the period since 1961. Such a relationship need not always hold. It depends on whether government deficits place upward pressure on interest rates and whether the central bank monetizes the debt in an effort to stabilize interest rates.     

确定情形下的货币、利率与内生经济增长

通过对消费和资本投入施加预付现金约束,在内生经济增长框架（AK模型）下建立了一个封闭的货币经济体,并构建了以利率为核心的分析框架。研究表明,在确定情形下,利率的改变会影响代理人的消费与投资,并进而对价格和经济总体的消费与投资产生影响,货币当局可以通过利率以间接控制货币供给;当货币供给变化时,经济总体的消费与投资等变量也会发生变化,货币不是中性的;通过比较最优利率政策与Friedman法则,发现两者惟一的区别仅在于最初期利率的不同。     

Money: Endogeneity and neutrality

This paper examines the implications of a contemporaneously observed endogenous money supply in rational expectations models of the Lucas-Barro variety. First, if there is contemporaneously perceived policy response (e.g., to interest rates), then a simultaneous equations bias produces inconsistency in the neutrality tests proposed by King and Boschen-Grossman. Second, if money acts as a ‘signal’ about economic conditions then autonomous money shocks can have real effects. In polar contrast to the Lucas-Barro analyses, this non-neutrality requires that monetary information be utilized by economic agents.     

我国同业拆借市场利率市场化发展的实证研究

同业拆借市场是货币市场最重要的子市场之一,市场化的同业拆借利率能及时灵敏地反映货币市场资金的供求状况,是市场上其他利率波动的重要参照与金融资产定价的重要基础。本文收集了1998-2003年、2005-2010年的相关数据,利用ADF单位根检验和格兰杰因果关系检验,对同业拆借利率的市场化情况进行实证分析,再对我国同业拆借市场的发展现状和存在问题进行分析,最后针对同业拆借利率市场化发展提出建议。     

Perverse liquidity effect of monetary policy: some evidence for India

The liquidity effect of money supply increases, as policy-oriented measures, would generally lead to a decline in interest rates. This is the direct effect. However, such money supply increases lead to a sum of the direct effect plus the positive indirect price and income effects. In sum, the net effect may be positive leading to a net increase and not a decrease in the interest rate. The regular money demand function is suitably modified to capture the structural changes of the Indian economy to verify the net effect of monetary policy-induced money supply movements. The empirical evidence indicates the presence of a perverse liquidity effect.     

Stochastic intramarginal interventions in target zones

In this paper, we develop an exchange rate target zone model with stochastic intramarginal interventions that generalizes Krugman's standard model. We assume that money supply changes are (negative) proportional to the velocity shocks. The model produces realistic patterns for the relationship among exchange rate, fundamentals and interest rate differentials, which can explain some empirical failures of previous target zone models. The main result derived from the model is that non-linearities in the behavior of both exchange rate and interest rate differential disappear as intramarginal interventions increase.     

Why interest rates react to money announcements: An explanation from the foreign exchange market

When the Fed announces a money supply greater than had been expected, interest rates rise. Why? One explanation is that the market raises its estimate of the future rates of money growth and inflation, and bids up nominal interest rates. We offer contrary evidence: on such days the dollar appreciates, not depreciates. An alternative explanation is that the market perceives the change in the money stock as a transitory fluctuation that the Fed will reverse in the future. The anticipated future tightening raises today's real interest rate, causes a capital inflow, and appreciates the dollar, the result in fact observed.     

THE BEHAVIOR OF U.S. SHORT-TERM INTEREST RATES SINCE OCTOBER 1979

Short-term interest rates in the United States have been “too high” since October 1979 in the sense that both unconditional and conditional forecasts, based on an estimated vector autoregression model summarizing the prior experience, underpredict short-term interest rates during this period. Although a nonstructural model cannot directly answer the question of why this has been so, comparisons of alternative conditional forecasts point to the post-October 1979 relationship between the growth of real income and the growth of real money balances as closely connected to the level and pattern of short-term interest rates. This finding is consistent with the authors' earlier conclusion, based on analysis of a small structural macroeconometric model, that the high average level of interest rates has been due to a combination of slow growth of (nominal) money supply and continuing price inflation, which together have kept real balances small in relation to prevailing levels of economic activity.