Expectations and optimal monetary policy: A stability problem revisited

A landmark result in the optimal monetary policy design literature is that fundamental-based interest rate rules invariably lead to rational expectations equilibria (REE) that are not stable under adaptive learning. In this paper, we make a novel information assumption that private agents cannot observe aggregate fundamental shocks, and use simple linear forecasting rules for learning. We find that with fundamental-based rules, there exist limited information equilibria that are stable under learning. Moreover, there are multiple equilibria. Learning can be used as a selection tool to identify a unique equilibrium.     

Expectations and the Stability Problem for Optimal Monetary Policies

A fundamentals based monetary policy rule, which would be the optimal monetary policy without commitment when private agents have perfectly rational expectations, is unstable if in fact these agents follow standard adaptive learning rules. This problem can be overcome if private expectations are observed and suitably incorporated into the policy maker's optimal rule. These strong results extend to the case in which there is simultaneous learning by the policy maker and the private agents. Our findings show the importance of conditioning policy appropriately, not just on fundamentals, but also directly on observed household and firm expectations.     

Financial market imperfections and monetary policy strategy

In a model with imperfect money, credit and reserve markets, we examine if an inflation-targeting central bank applying the funds rate operating procedure to indirectly control market interest rates also needs a monetary aggregate as policy instrument. We show that if private agents use information extracted from money and financial markets to form inflation expectations and if interest rate pass-through is incomplete, the central bank can use a narrow monetary aggregate and the discount interest rate as independent and complementary policy instruments to reinforce the credibility of its announcements and the role of inflation target as a nominal anchor for inflation expectations. This study shows how a monetary policy strategy combining inflation targeting and monetary targeting can be conceived to guarantee macroeconomic stability and the credibility of monetary policy. Friedman's k-percent money growth rule, which can generate dynamic instability, and two alternative stabilizing feedback monetary targeting rules are examined.     

Using Taylor Rules to Understand European Central Bank Monetary Policy

Abstract. Over the last decade, the simple instrument policy rule developed by Taylor has become a popular tool for evaluating the monetary policy of central banks. As an extensive empirical analysis of the European Central Bank's (ECB) past behaviour still seems to be in its infancy, we estimate several instrument policy reaction functions for the ECB to shed some light on actual monetary policy in the euro area under the presidency of Wim Duisenberg and answer questions like whether the ECB has actually followed a stabilizing or a destabilizing rule so far. Looking at contemporaneous Taylor rules, the evidence presented suggests that the ECB is accommodating changes in inflation and hence follows a destabilizing policy. However, this impression seems to be largely due to the lack of a forward-looking perspective in such specifications. Either assuming rational expectations and using a forward-looking specification, or using expectations as derived from surveys result in Taylor rules that do imply a stabilizing role of the ECB. The use of real-time industrial production data does not seem to play such a significant role as in the case of the United States.     

Optimal price‐level drift under commitment in the canonical New Keynesian model

Abstract In both the canonical and many extended versions of the New Keynesian model, optimal monetary policy under commitment implies price‐level stationarity as long as expectations are rational. We show that this is no longer the case if the central bank and private agents make decisions before observing current shocks. The optimal amount of price‐level drift in response to unexpected innovations to inflation is quantitatively important. This result has important implications for monetary policy, including the design of the optimal loss function for the central bank if it cannot commit to its future policies.     

Central bank forecasts and private expectations: An empirical assessment from three emerging economies

As part of their monetary policy strategy, many central banks are attempting to manage private sector expectations about key macroeconomic variables. In this article, we investigate whether forecasts provided by central banks in three inflation targeting emerging economies (Brazil, Mexico, and Poland) affect the expectations of private forecasters. In particular, we analyze whether the disagreement between the central bank and private sector forecasts applies to explain changes in private sector expectations regarding inflation and economic growth. The findings show that while central bank forecasts are higher than those made by private sector forecasters, the result is an update upwards of private forecasts and that this effect is stronger for GDP growth forecasts than for inflation forecasts.     

Unconditionally optimal Ramsey policy

We discuss a time invariant policy which delivers the unconditionally optimal outcomes in purely forward-looking models and Ramsey outcomes in purely backward-looking models. This policy is a product of interaction between two institutions with distinct responsibilities. Motivated by Brendon and Ellison (2015), we think of them as arms of government. One institution is responsible for ‘forward guidance’, setting rules which are necessary and sufficient to determine private expectations. The second institution implements optimal policy taking expectations as given. The forward guidance rules are designed to maximise the unconditional expectation of the social objectives.     

Price‐level versus inflation targeting under model uncertainty

It has recently been suggested that price‐level targeting (PLT) may be a superior approach to monetary policy than inflation targeting (IT) due to its ability to automatically influence inflation expectations to stabilize the economy. In this paper, I analyze whether PLT dominates IT if the ability of the central bank to influence expectations is limited by model uncertainty. Specifically, I analyze how the characterization and performance of PLT and IT rules are impacted if private agents form expectations according to a model that deviates from the policy‐maker's reference model. Using robust control to derive robust rules in such a situation, I find that the performance of PLT rules deteriorate faster than that of IT rules as the degree of misspecification increases. Nevertheless, the absolute decline in performance of the PLT rules is relatively small across alternative models that are statistically plausible.     

Do the ECB's introductory statements help predict monetary policy? Evidence from a tone analysis

In this paper, we examine whether a tone shock derived from European Central Bank communication helps predict ECB monetary policy decisions. To this purpose, we first use a bag-of-words approach and several dictionaries on the ECB's Introductory Statements to derive a measure of tone. Next, we orthogonalise the tone measure on the latest data available to market participants to compute the tone shock. Finally, we relate the tone shock to future ECB monetary policy decisions. We find that the tone shock is significantly and positively related to future ECB monetary policy decisions, even when controlling for market expectations of monetary policy and the Governing Council's inter-meeting communication. Further extensions show that the predictive ability of the tone shock is robust to (i) the normalization of the tone measure, (ii) alternative market expectations of monetary policy, and (iii) the horizon of macroeconomic variables used in the Taylor-type monetary policy rule. These findings highlight an additional channel through which ECB communication improves monetary policy predictability, suggesting that the ECB may have private information that it communicates through its Introductory Statements.     

Big Brother is also being watched: Measuring fiscal credibility

Fiscal policy is less credible than monetary policy, due to political economy issues. This paper provides an explicit measure of fiscal credibility, based on the anchoring of private expectations onto official targets. It documents how credibility varied among a sample of 27 European countries over 1995–2019. Credibility behaves like a stock of trust that is affected by fiscal policy, past performance, and institutions (fiscal rules and councils). This paper highlights how regular government communication – budgets and fiscal plans – is crucial to anchor expectations and buttress credibility. Last, it shows that credibility is associated with better sovereign financing conditions. Governments should thus strive to maintain their credibility.     

Real and nominal effects of monetary policy shocks

Abstract.  We employ the identification scheme of Kahn, Kandel and Sarig (2002) to analyse the impact of Canadian monetary policy on ex ante real interest rates and inflationary expectations. First, we decompose nominal interest rates into ex ante real rates and inflationary expectations using the methodology of Blanchard and Quah (1989) . Then we estimate a recursive VAR model with innovations in a monetary aggregate and the overnight target interest rate as alternative measures of monetary policy shocks. We find that a negative policy shock raises both nominal and ex ante real interest rates, lowers inflationary expectations and real industrial output, and appreciates the Canadian dollar.     

Robust control and central banking behaviour

This paper seeks to explain the recent behaviour of the two main central banks in the recent financial crisis, applying a robust control tool through a Neo-Keynesian monetary policy model. The direct forbearer of this paper is the Giordani and Söderlind (2004) study. It begins with the origin, purpose and theoretical grounds of robust control, indicating that it is one way to face model uncertainty, as an alternative to the Bayesian approach. In the middle section, we seek to obtain the course of the model's main variables: interest rates, inflation and output. The model constructor also wants the participating agents to have the same doubts that he has regarding its validity; therefore, robust control is considered as a “fine-tuning” of the rational expectations approach. The impulse-response functions are obtained, with the monetary authority acting as a Stackelberg-type leader, affected by a perturbation on the supply side. The two relevant equilibria are obtained and compared in robust control with dynamic economy (the reference equilibrium and the worst possible case equilibrium) with that obtained when operating with rational expectations. The alternative course for the reference model set forth in the paper by Dennis (2008) is also analysed. We mainly find that the different results depend on the behaviour of the law of motion of the state variables, specifically the shadow prices that influence the private sector's expectations. Lastly, the paper relates the recent monetary policy performance when facing the financial crisis that began in the summer of 2007.     

Monetary policy with uncertain central bank preferences

This paper considers monetary policy when policy makers’ preferences are private information. I show that in the first period of a two-period term, all policy makers but the least inflation averse inflate less - but respond more to shocks - than if there were no private information. Moderately inflation-averse policy makers may reduce their inflation most. A tendency toward increased conservatism in their second period increases inflation in the first. With T<∞ period terms, inflation depends solely on the policy maker's time left in office. With unchanging preferences and no discounting, inflation is lower the longer he has left.     

Learning process and rational expectations: An analysis using a small macro-economic model for New Zealand

The nature of expectations matters when conducting monetary policy. Models with a learning process can exhibit very different properties from models with other types of expectation rules. This paper draws on the work of Orphanides and Williams [Orphanides, A., Williams, J.C. 2002. Imperfect knowledge, inflation expectations and monetary policy, Federal Reserve Board Finance and Economics Discussion Series, 2002-27], extending it to allow for the possibility that the learning process may not be perpetual, but rather might be converging towards a rational expectations equilibrium. By modelling expectations using a learning process, we obtain that inflation expectations in New Zealand are moving towards rational expectations. The closer expectations are to rational, the more inflation can be reduced without costs, thus arguing for a rather tough policy aimed at anchoring expectations on the target.     

Inflation targeting in a learning economy: An ABM perspective

This paper investigates the performances of an inflation targeting regime in a learning economy framed as an Agent-Based Model (ABM). We keep our ABM as close as possible to the original New Keynesian (NK) model, but we model the individual behaviour of the agents under procedural rationality à la Simon. Accordingly, we assume that their behaviour is guided by simple rules of thumb – or heuristics – while a continuous learning process governs the evolution of those rules. Under these assumptions that also allow the emergence of agents heterogeneity, we analyze the dynamics of the economy without assuming rational expectations, and study the role that a central bank, implementing an inflation targeting regime via a monetary policy rule, can play in the orientation of these dynamics. Consequently, our main goal is to analyse the interplay between the learning mechanisms operating at the individual level and the features and performances of the inflation targeting regime. Our results point to the prime importance of the credibility of central bank's inflation target regarding macroeconomic stabilisation, as well as the beneficial role played by that target as an anchoring device for private inflation expectations. We also establish the potential welfare cost of imperfect public information and contribute to the current debate on optimal monetary policy rules under imperfect common knowledge and uncertainty.     

Financial imbalances and gradualism

In the last years, in the major OECD economies, while inflation has become lower and more stable, episodes of financial instability and large cycles in asset prices have shown up with (often) non-negligible effects on economic activity. These facts should call for a larger concern with financial imbalances by the central bank. Adapting the model by Caplin and Leahy (1996)—where a central bank, which is uncertain about the state of the economy and its reaction to policy, seeks an optimal search strategy to influence private agents' responses—by substituting the central bank's price stability objective with a financial stability one, we find that the monetary authority should follow a less aggressive policy than the one suggested by the original model. However, initial conditions play a crucial role in determining the degree of gradualism by the policy maker with the policy becoming more and more aggressive as the initial interest rate shrinks.     

Identifying fiscal inflation

Fiscal theorists warn about the risk of future inflation as a consequence of fiscal imbalances in the US. Because actual inflation remains historically low and data on inflation expectations do not corroborate such risks, warnings for fiscal inflation are often ignored in policy and academic circles. This paper shows that a canonical NK-DSGE model enables identifying an anticipated component of inflation expectations that is closely related to fiscal policy. Estimation results suggest that fiscal inflation concerns have induced a 1.6%-points increase in long-run inflation since 2001. The model also rationalizes why data on inflation expectations do not reveal such concerns outright.     

Impact of official forecasts on private expectations: The paradox of manipulation (The French Case: 1965–1982)

Official forecasts may be considered as an attempt to condition the state of opinion. Still the credibility of economic policy is a sine qua non condition for a successful annoncement effect. A quantitative analysis of government manipulation on price expectations outlines a paradox. A government with high political support can manipulate the private expectations but it usually doesn't need to, since its high popularity is a result of a satisfactory state of economy. Manipulation interests a government with low popularity but it is not efficient since individuals prefer private forecasts or an naive extrapolative process to form their price expectations.     

Managing financial market expectations: The role of central bank transparency and central bank communication

In this paper, we study the influence of central bank transparency and informal central bank communication on the formation of money market expectations. The sample covers nine major central banks from January 1999 to July 2007. We find, first, that transparency reduces the bias in money market expectations and dampens their variation. Second, informal communications help manage financial market expectations by reducing the variation of expectations. Third, various subcategories of the Eijffinger and Geraats (2006) transparency index lead to a smaller bias in expectations (in particular, evaluation of policy outcome and explanation of interest rate decisions) and to a reduction in the variation of expectations (in particular, explicit prioritization of objectives and provision of information on unanticipated macroeconomic disturbances).