Measuring the Natural Rate of Interest Redux

Persistently low real interest rates have prompted the question whether low interest rates are here to stay. This essay assesses the empirical evidence regarding the natural rate of interest in the United States using the Laubach-Williams model. Since the start of the Great Recession, the estimated natural rate of interest fell sharply and shows no sign of recovering. These results are robust to alternative model specifications. If the natural rate remains low, future episodes of hitting the zero lower bound are likely to be frequent and long-lasting. In addition, uncertainty about the natural rate argues for policy approaches that are more robust to mismeasurement of natural rates.     

Is the Fed Funds Rate Still Effective?

Both the depth and length of the Great Recession create the impression that the economy proved impervious to monetary policy. Policy rates, such as the federal funds rate (fed funds rate), were set at record lows, but the recovery in housing, employment, and GDP were subpar at best. Now with a self-sustaining expansion, the FOMC began rolling back its asset purchases program and, at some point in the future, it will start increasing its target for the fed funds rate. This raises the questions of whether the fed funds rate remains an effective tool and what effect an altered Federal Reserve balance sheet will have on inflation and the unemployment rate in the post-Great Recession world. Our econometric analysis suggests that since the 1990s, the traditional tools of monetary policy (such as the fed funds rate) may have influenced the unemployment rate but that it did not influence inflation. Thus, the effect a change in the fed funds rate may not be as straightforward as suggested by the conventional economic theory and the traditional link between interest rates and inflation and unemployment may have broken down.     

Die Transmission über den Zinskanal: von der Geldpolitik zur Kreditnachfrage

Through more favourable funding costs for commercial banks, the central bank can send expansionary monetary stimuli into the real economy to boost the demand for credit. In this regard, one of the most important channels for the transmission of monetary policy is the interest rate channel. This contribution analyses the effectiveness of the interest rate channel in the eurozone. It comes to the conclusion that the transmission of the expansive monetary stimulus into the banking sector works well, but that the transmission of the stimulus to the real economy is partly inhibited. The main factors that dampen credit demand are higher real interest rates as well as low growth and higher indebtedness, especially in the eurozone’s peripheral countries.     

房地产泡沫的虚拟经济决定论及其实证检验

现代房地产具有虚拟资产特征。对房地产泡沫的虚拟经济决定论的实证检验包括:房地产价格与货币政策、利率政策、信贷波动及股价各自之间的相关检验。结果发现,货币供应量、利率等虚拟经济变量对房地产价格都存在显著的影响。整体而言,来自中国的实证分析初步支持了房地产泡沫的货币推动假说,房地产泡沫是一种货币现象的判断。     

零利率下限约束、宏观经济波动与混合型货币政策框架

宏观经济持续低迷引发学界关于货币政策有效性的广泛讨论。本文构建包含名义利率零下限约束的混合型货币政策框架,据以系统比较存在和不存在零利率下限约束两种情形下宏观经济波动异质性以及货币政策有效性的差异。研究发现,总需求下降时零利率下限约束情形下产出下降和通缩程度更为严重;总供给下降不会引致名义利率触及零利率下限以致宏观经济波动演变无明显差异;零利率下限约束情形下央行数量型调控的有效性显著降低,价格型调控则完全失效。本文认为考虑零利率下限约束的建模更宜刻画现实经济周期和宏观调控效力,忽视零利率下限约束会对宏观经济预判和政策调控有效性的认识产生偏误;需求低迷环境下“数量型调控为主、价格型调控为辅”的政策组合仍为央行合意的货币调控范式,央行须更加关注降低实际资金利率;政府应注重宏观政策协调配合,实施更加积极的财政政策以与货币政策发挥有效政策合力,促使实体经济趋稳高质发展以摆脱利率下限约束困境。     

R-star wars: the phantom menace

The natural real rate of interest has been on a declining path for the past 30 years. I present a regime-switching analysis of the natural rate, which suggests that the current low levels are likely to persist in the near future. I identify a high global demand for safe assets as the most important factor in keeping the natural rate low. I conclude that the current low levels of the policy rate are generally appropriate, with some upside risk, and that forward guidance should be characterized by a flat policy rate path.     

A POST‐KEYNESIAN AMENDMENT TO THE NEW CONSENSUS ON MONETARY POLICY

A common view is now pervasive in policy research at universities and central banks, which one could call the New Keynesian consensus, based on an endogenous money supply. This new consensus reproduces received wisdom: in the long run, expansionary fiscal policy leads to higher inflation rates and real interest rates, while more restrictive monetary policy only leads to lower inflation rates. The paper provides a simple four‐quadrant apparatus to represent the above, and it shows that simple modifications to the new consensus model are enough to radically modify received doctrine as to the likely effects of fiscal and monetary policies.     

MONETARY AND FISCAL INTERACTIONS: SHORT‐RUN AND LONG‐RUN IMPLICATIONS

We model policy interactions in a growing economy. Unemployment can persist and matters for the real wage; conflicting claims underpin inflation outcomes; and aggregate demand determines capacity utilization and unemployment. Monetary policy is characterized by a Taylor rule. Fiscal policy is characterized by a marginal tendency to run deficits or surpluses. We address three questions: can monetary policy ensure macroeconomic stability in the absence of coordinated fiscal policy, can fiscal policy ensure macroeconomic stability when the monetary authority pegs the interest rate, and can policy authorities trade‐off some sustained inflation for a long‐run improvement in unemployment rates?     

Monetary policy and U.S. long-term interest rates: How close are the linkages?

The effect of monetary policy on long-term interest rates has been a question of interest in recent years. A number of papers, relying on single-equation estimation techniques, have presented evidence that long-term interest rates exhibit sizable and significant responses to unanticipated changes in the Federal Reserve's target federal funds rate. This paper examines these findings in light of conflicting findings from VAR studies, which indicate negligible effects of innovations in the federal funds rate on long-term rates. To address the issue we use a single-equation approach where unanticipated changes in the federal funds rate are measured as residuals from policy reaction functions. We also estimate VAR specifications, which incorporate information about the timing of changes in the Federal Reserve's target federal funds rate. Our single-equation estimates provide evidence of strong responses of long rates to unanticipated changes in the federal funds rate both for the Greenspan period and for a longer period back to the mid-1960s. It seems likely that estimated VARs for the post-1987 years are less successful in isolating monetary policy surprises than was the case for earlier years.     

INTEREST AS AN ARTEFACT OF SELF‐VALIDATING CENTRAL BANK BELIEFS

The classical/Sraffian approach to distribution is proposed as a more congenial framework for Keynes's concept of interest as a conventional variable—resulting from the interplay between central bank behaviour and financial market sentiment—because it provides a sounder basis for multiple interest rate equilibria. While either monetary policy or market expectations can be decisive, the capacity of policy to ensure markets acquiesce in the authorities' view remains at least as plausible as Keynes supposed. Interest is a result of ‘history’ plus the beliefs of the monetary authorities, where those beliefs may be illusory but nevertheless validated by actual outcomes.     

Monetary policy surprises and interest rates under China's evolving monetary policy framework

China's monetary policy framework has evolved considerably in the past two decades, increasingly moving from using quantity-based instruments and targets to using price-based instruments and targets. This paper assesses the effectiveness of monetary policy in China by examining the influence of monetary policy on market interest rates using an event-study approach. We find that the effectiveness of price-based instruments in impacting market interest rates increases over time, and that price-based instruments are as effective as quantity instruments during the period since the completion of interest rates liberalization. Furthermore, central bank communications, an increasingly important aspect of monetary policy, affect medium- and long-term market interest rates. Our findings are robust to the use of an alternative measure of monetary policy surprise and an alternative estimation method.     

Open Economy Dynamics in a Floating Exchange Rate Developing Country Context

ABSTRACT

This article develops a wavelet-based control model to simulate fiscal, monetary, and real exchange rate scenarios in an open economy developing country with an inflation-targeting regime. We use South African macro data to jointly simulate optimal fiscal and monetary policy under varying scenarios for real exchange rate stability with interest rate parity. As real exchange rate stability increases, the model simulates the effects on the trade balance under both a constant and depreciating real exchange rate. We find that short-term cycle stability problems are somewhat mitigated by allowing the real exchange rate to depreciate.     

A Simple Post-Crisis EMU Phillips Curve — Implications for Monetary Policy

The persistently low wage and price growth in the EMU after the Great Recession of 2009 led some economic observers to conclude that the Phillips Curve has broken down and that the ECB should therefore reconsider its infl ation target. This study makes use of the considerable cross-country and cross-time heterogeneity in terms of infl ation and capacity utilisation of EMU member states after the Great Recession to investigate whether these claims are corroborated by empirical evidence. The results point to the conclusion that the Phillips Curve is alive and well in the EMU and centred at or only slightly below the ECB’s inflation target. Therefore, a readjustment of the infl ation target seems unjustified. Furthermore, as the ECB can expect inflation to return to its target, it possibly can accelerate tapering its unconventional monetary policy measures as the recovery continues.     

Comments at the Panel “Responders of First or Last Resort: Central Bank Strategies in an Era of Ultra-Low Interest Rates”

There is an emerging consensus among economists that the trend rate of economic growth in the U.S. is much lower now than in the past. In a lower-trend-growth regime, short-term equilibrium real interest rates are lower, all else being equal. In these circumstances monetary policymakers have less room to cut policy rates before hitting the zero lower bound and relying on unconventional policy tools to provide additional accommodation. Moreover, preserving the Fed’s credibility for providing sufficient accommodation to achieve our symmetric inflation objective and maximum employment remains an important consideration. Therefore, risk-management policies favor skewing policy today to lower the chances of facing more difficult zero-lower-bound outcomes in the future.     

The Explanatory Power of Monetary Policy Rules

Over the past 20 years, the use of monetary policy rules has become pervasive in analyzing and prescribing monetary policy. This paper traces the development of such rules and their use in the analysis, prediction, and stabilization of national economies. In particular, rules provide insight into eras in which monetary policy was not effective as well as when it was, such as the persistence of the ongoing “Great Moderation.” The paper stresses the “scientific” contributions of rules, including their insight into fluctuations of housing construction and exchange rates, as well as into the term structure of interest rates. JEL Classification E52, E58     

货币政策的利率期限结构效应的理论解释及其经验证据

文章首先运用一个利率期限结构的预期理论模型,证明了“在预期假说框架内货币政策只能引起收益率曲线平行移动而不会改变它的坡度”这一论断是错误的;接下来运用一个局部均衡模型在利率期限结构的预期理论框架下,证明了货币政策行动模式（参数）会影响货币政策对市场利率的影响效果、利率期限结构（收益率曲线）的斜率及其动态特征;之后用一个基于中关两国比较的经验证据说明上述理论解释的可靠性。     

Can monetary policy tame Harrodian instability?

The paper introduces monetary policy into the canonical Kaleckian growth model with a built‐in Harrodian instability. It abstains, however, from the simple and immediately stabilizing interest rate inverse IS curve. Instead, more indirect effects are examined, which realistically will take time to work out. In particular, (a) the trend rate of growth governing the investment decisions additionally responds to the difference between the profit rate and the real rate of interest; and (b) the real interest rate may enter dynamic adjustments of the price markup. The main finding is that the Harrodian forces could still be overcome and stability of the steady state position is re‐established provided that the profitability motive in (a) and the responsiveness in the Taylor policy rule are both sufficiently strong. By contrast, the indirect feedback effects produced by (b) broaden the scope for instability. In sum, monetary policy in this extended framework can favour stability but is not necessarily the stabilizing panacea that the New Consensus considers it to be.     

Monetary policy and the yield curve in an emerging market: the Greek case

This paper explores the impact of monetary policy actions on the nominal term yield curve in the Greek money market. Essentially, the monetary transmission mechanism is under scrutiny in testing monetary policy effectiveness. We focus on the dynamic inter-relationship between the short-term monetary policy instrument (Overnight rate) and market rates across the term structure. The findings are in accordance with the fact that Expectations Hypothesis monetary policy actions have a significant impact on all market rates; however, the impact is decreasing monotonically with maturity of the interest rate.     

美联储量化宽松货币政策正常化与人民币汇率变动——基于时变参数向量自相关模型的研究

2015年后,随着量化宽松货币政策正常化和人民币汇率进入双向波动新常态,美国货币政策对人民币汇率的外溢效应日益显著。通过构建时变参数向量自相关模型对2008-2018年美联储量化宽松货币政策的实施和退出对人民币汇率的溢出效应进行研究,结果表明：美联储加息在滞后一季度作用人民币兑美元先升值后贬值,加息通过中美利差、产出差、货币供给之差分别作用于人民币兑美元贬值、升值和升值,利差渠道是主要作用渠道;美联储资产负债表扩张和缩减分别带来人民币汇率的升值和贬值,且扩张的升值影响大于缩减的贬值影响;美联储资产负债表和利率政策有一定替代性,替代关系存在明显的结构效应;美联储资产负债表的扩张和缩减分别带来中国银行间市场利率的下降和回升,两国利率表现出一定联动性。     

On the Link Between Exchange‐rate Regimes,Capital Controls and Monetary Policy Autonomy in Small European Countries, 1979–2000

We investigate international monetary‐policy transmission under different exchange‐rate and capital‐account regimes in eleven small, open economies during the 1980s and 1990s. We find no systematic link between ex‐post monetary‐policy autonomy and exchange‐rate regimes. Capital controls appear to have provided a degree of temporal insulation from foreign monetary policy shocks, though not strict autonomy. The results are consistent both with short‐term autonomy for small countries even under fixed exchange rates and an open capital account, and with long‐term dependence under flexible exchange rates and an independent stability target. Results also indicate that euro‐area market interest rates are significantly more responsive to the development of the corresponding US rate than were the previous national rates.