China’s monetary policy: Quantity versus price rules

Two monetary policy rules, the money supply (quantity) rule and interest rate (price) rule, are explored for China in a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model. The empirical results seem to indicate that the price rule is likely to be more effective in managing the macroeconomy than the quantity rule, favoring the government’s intention of liberalizing interest rates and making a more active use of the price instrument. Moreover, the economy would have experienced less fluctuations had interest rate responded more aggressively to inflation.     

China's regime-switching monetary policy

To understand Chinese monetary policy, we estimate a forward-looking Taylor-type monetary policy reaction function. The novelty of our paper lies in two aspects. The first is to use a composite overall indicator (the Sun-MP index) to tackle the measurement uncertainty and hence the model selection problem (i.e., a Taylor versus McCallum rule). The second is to capture nonlinearities in the PBC's policy responses with the multiple-regime threshold regression model. We find strong evidence that the PBC's policy reaction function is asymmetric during the post-2000 period and switches across three different regimes. When expecting high inflation, the PBC tightens by adjusting various policy tools; while facing an expected economic slowdown, it eases. However, it is tolerant to low inflation and economic overheating; it barely reacts to them. These findings highlight the importance of allowing for regime switches in modelling the policy response function of a “young” and fast evolving central bank in emerging countries like China.     

IS THE VIEW FROM THE EUROTOWER PURELY EUROPEAN? – NATIONAL DIVERGENCE AND ECB INTEREST RATE POLICY

The official view on ECB monetary policy claims that decisions are based on euro zone data and that diverging regional developments are disregarded. To test empirically whether regional developments have an impact on ECB decisions we develop a generalised monetary policy reaction function which allows for an influence of regional divergence. Reaction function estimations and a probit model of interest rate decisions for the first years of the euro area offer some first support for an impact of regional divergence. The results clarify that ignoring a potential national perspective may lead to biased estimates for the ECB reaction function.     

Fed and ECB monetary policy spillovers to Emerging Market Economies

This paper presents evidence that the international spillovers of both Fed and ECB conventional monetary policies to Emerging Market Economies (EMEs) are global. The result comes from the panel Bayesian Vector Autoregressive (BVAR) model estimated for EMEs in which we control i.a. for foreign central banks’ policy shocks. Furthermore, in the separate BVAR model for Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries we show that the ECB is the main foreign central bank for these economies — after controlling for its shocks, their Fed counterparts play a very moderate role in driving GDP and prices in CEE.     

Monetary policy in Germany: A cointegration analysis on the relevance of interest rate rules

The paper attempts to identify an empirical relationship that characterizes the way the Bundesbank adjusted its short-term rate with respect to various objectives. By building on a careful exploration of the properties of the variables involved, it is established that interest rate rules —often remarkably similar to the Taylor rule— remain valid and relevant in a Vector Error Correction framework, and thereby proposing a distinctive interpretation of German monetary policy during the period 1975–1998.     

Estimating a monetary policy reaction function for the dominican republic

Abstract

The paper specifies and estimates a hybrid McCallum–Taylor monetary policy reaction function for the Dominican Republic (DR). The estimated reactions suggest that the Central Bank of the DR has been biased towards targeting the exchange rate. These findings are in line with the evidence on the fear-of-floating characteristic of developing countries. An evaluation of the estimated rule's historical performance shows that monetary base growth below (above) that implied by the ‘average’ policy reaction is associated with better (worse) macroeconomic performance.     

Asymmetric monetary policy rules in Australia

In this study, the hypothesis that the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) implements an asymmetric monetary policy rule is tested. We estimate both linear and asymmetric monetary policy reaction functions for the period before inflation targeting was adopted, for the period when inflation targeting was explicitly adopted and for the full sample period. The results of the linear monetary policy rules are consistent with the estimates reported from other studies that estimate linear monetary policy rules for Australia. On the other hand, the results of estimating the asymmetric monetary policy rules for the pre-inflation targeting period shows that the RBA had reacted symmetrically, suggesting that it had acted with the same aggressiveness towards both inflation and output gaps of the same magnitude, over both phases of the business cycle. However, for the inflation targeting period, the results show that the RBA had reacted asymmetrically in its policy response to the inflation gap, output gap or both. A similar result is found for the full sample period. This asymmetric response supports the view that a non-linear monetary policy rule emanated from asymmetric preferences, rather than from the existence of a non-linear Phillips curve.     

Politics and the UK's monetary policy

This paper examines whether politics causes regime shifts in deviations from the optimal monetary policy in the United Kingdom. After using a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model to construct the welfare-maximizing policy rule and deviations from the optimal Taylor rule, we show that politics does indeed play an important role in explaining these deviations. In addition to politics, unemployment rates account for regime shifts in the Taylor rule deviations.     

The dynamic effectiveness of monetary policy in China: evidence from a TVP-SV-FAVAR model

We use a broad set of China’s macroeconomic indicators and a dynamic factor model to estimate latent factors of economic output and inflation, which are used to measure the ultimate objectives of monetary policy. The above factors and policy variables are incorporated into a TVP-SV-FAVAR model to investigate the dynamic effectiveness of Chinese monetary policy. Our results confirm that the effects of Chinese monetary policy are time-varying. By comparing the quantity rule with the price rule, we find that the price rule is more effective in managing China’s macro-economy, especially after the financial crisis. Moreover, the results can be regarded as a division of policy rules in a way that different rules are directed at different objectives.     

Taylor Rules for the ECB using Expectations Data*

We estimate Taylor rules for the euro area using Consensus Economics data for expected inflation and output growth, and compare these estimates with more conventional specifications in which actual outcomes are used. We find that the ECB takes expected inflation and expected output growth into account in setting interest rates, while in the more conventional model specification, the coefficient of realized inflation is not significantly different from zero.     

What is on the ECB’s mind? Monetary policy before and after the global financial crisis

This paper analyzes the monetary policy of the European Central Bank (ECB) both before and after the outbreak of the global financial crisis in 2008. In the literature, researchers typically select one Taylor rule-based model to analyze monetary policy of central banks and to derive determinants for the interest rate setting. However, uncertainty about the choice of this respective model is typically neglected. In contrast, we apply a Bayesian model averaging (BMA) approach to extend the Taylor rule to account for model uncertainty driven by heterogeneity in the ECB’s decision-making body, the Governing Council. Our results suggest the following: First, the ECB focuses on the inflation rate when setting interest rates. Second, economic activity indicators were in the focus of the ECB before the financial crisis. Third, over the last decade, the role of economic activity decreased, indicating that inflation is the main driver of monetary policy decisions in the post-crisis period. Fourth, when setting interest rates, central bankers appear to consider more than one model.     

Nonlinear Phillips curve,NAIRU and monetary policy rules

The US Phillips curve is modeled with a logistic smooth transition autoregression specification that allows various nonlinear shapes. Using this, the paper derives model-consistent estimates of the NAIRU. The NAIRU is defined as the level of unemployment rate that would correspond to a forecast of no inflation changes over the policy horizon. This paper also investigates the implications of nonlinearities in the Phillips curve for deriving optimal monetary policy rules. The optimal policy rule for interest rates and implied sacrifice ratios are found to be nonlinear as well.      

ECB monetary policy and commodity prices

We assess the impact of ECB monetary policy on global aggregate and sectoral commodity prices over 2001–2019. We employ an SVAR model and separately assess periods before and after the global financial crisis. Our key results indicate that contractionary monetary policy shocks have positive effects on commodity prices during both conventional and unconventional monetary policy periods, indicating the effectiveness of unconventional monetary policy tools. The largest impact is documented on energy (fuel) and food commodities. Our results also suggest that the effect of ECB monetary policy on commodity prices transmits through the exchange rate channel, which influences European market demand.     

A regime-switching approach to estimating the nonlinear quantity-based monetary policy rule in China

This article focuses on the quantity-based monetary policy rule in China. The article applies a Markov regime-switching approach to estimate the nonlinear policy rule using quarterly data from 1997Q1 to 2015Q2. Overall, the performance of the estimated two-state rule is significantly better than the performance of the linear rule. The regime-switching estimation suggests that the quantity-based policy tool displays a countercyclical response to the inflation gap but a pro-cyclical response to the output gap during recessions. In addition, this article provides notable evidence of the fact that China’s central bank has been targeting inflation over the gradual course of financial liberalization.     

Optimal information acquisition and monetary policy

I study optimal monetary policy with an expectational AS curve and private agents who optimally choose their amount of information pertinent to predicting policy. Shocks with time-varying variance (ARCH) induce interesting information acquisition (IA) dynamics; optimal IA affects optimal policy and vice versa. Under discretion, IA dynamics cause time-varying effectiveness of policy because of the expectational AS curve; policy may be rendered completely ineffective. In policy game equilibrium, a fall in the shock’s variance typically induces less IA and raises welfare. In one exceptional case the opposite occurs, a result which does not require implausible unstable equilibria. An agent becoming informed increases the endogenous component of economic volatility; IA therefore has a negative externality. Under commitment policy’s effectiveness is again time-varying, but policy is never completely ineffective: commitment enables the central bank to credibly limit policy’s volatility; this limits private agents’ incentive to become informed, so limits expectation-induced policy neutrality.     

Socially optimal monetary policy institutions

Research on the interaction between wage setters and central banks has shown that the classical dichotomy of monetary policy models in the tradition of Barro and Gordon [Journal of Political Economy 91 (1983) 589] does not hold if an inflation motive of wage setters is introduced. In this paper, the conditions for this result are re-examined under different assumptions concerning the exact timing of the strategic game, and the consequences for the socially optimal delegation rules and incentive contracts for central bankers are derived. It is shown that the relationship between central bank conservativeness and macroeconomic performance—and hence the design of optimal monetary policy institutions—is sensitive to the modelling choice. In particular, the case for an ultra-populist central banker is valid only under assumptions that appear to be quite unrealistic.     

Discretionary policy in a monetary union with sovereign debt

This paper examines the interactions between multiple national fiscal policymakers and a single monetary policy maker in response to shocks to government debt in some or all of the countries of a monetary union. We assume that national governments respond to excess debt in an optimal manner, but that they do not have access to a commitment technology. This implies that national fiscal policy gradually reduces debt: the lack of a commitment technology precludes a random walk in steady-state debt, but the need to maintain national competitiveness avoids excessively rapid debt reduction. If the central bank can commit, it adjusts its policies only slightly in response to higher debt, allowing national fiscal policy to undertake most of the adjustment. However, if it cannot commit, then optimal monetary policy involves using interest rates to rapidly reduce debt, with significant welfare costs. We show that in these circumstances the central bank would do better to ignore national fiscal policies in formulating its policy.     

An empirical evaluation of China’s monetary policies

This paper investigates the responsiveness of the Chinese government’s monetary policies in terms of the money supply and interest rates to economic conditions and the effectiveness of these policies in achieving the goals of stimulating economic growth and controlling inflation. We analyze the responsiveness and effectiveness by estimating the Taylor rule, the McCallum rule, and a vector autoregressive model using quarterly data in the period of 1992-2009. The results show that, overall, the monetary policy variables respond to economic growth and the inflation rate, but the magnitudes of the responses are much weaker than those observed in market economies. Money supply responded actively to both the inflation rate and the real output and had certain effects on the future inflation rates and real output. The official interest rates, on the other hand, responded passively to the inflation rate and did not respond to the real output. They do not have any effect on future inflation rates and real output either.     

Asset price momentum and monetary policy: time-varying parameter estimation of Taylor Rules

In this article, we consider two new independent variables as inputs to the Taylor Rule. These are the equity and housing momentum variables and are introduced to investigate the potential usefulness of these two variables in guiding the Fed to lean against potential bubbles. Such effectiveness cannot adequately be evaluated if the Taylor Rule estimation follows the standard regression methodology that has been criticized in the literature to be econometrically incorrect. Using a time-varying parameter estimation methodology, we find that equity momentum as an input in the Taylor Rule does not contribute to changes in Fed Funds. However, the housing momentum plays an important role econometrically and can be a useful tool in setting Fed Funds rates.