Testing Monetary Policy Intentions in Open Economies

Temple (2002) argues that the inflation level used in Romer (1993) lacks power in revealing the policy intentions of monetary authorities, Temple also points out that Romer's use of the openness-inflation correlation cannot be explained by time consistency theory. In this article, we demonstrate that more open economies experience less inflation volatility and persislence. We attribute our findings to the hypothesis that monetary authorities in more open economies adopt more aggressive monetary policies. This pattern emerges strongly after 1990. Our results indicate that the near-universal regime shift in 1990 is not just a simple process of increased monetary policy aggressiveness, but an increased response to economic openness.     

Monetary Hegemony and its Implications for Small,Open Economies

The paper uses historical data on interest rates from 1920 to 2016 to explore whether a world rate of interest exists and whether a monetary hegemon affects it. The first principal component of long-term interest rates accounts for 75% of the variation in a matrix of 17 countries and proxies for the world rate of interest. The U.S. played the role of a hegemon, influencing long-term bond rates. After the introduction of the euro in 1999, interest rates in most European countries followed German interest rates but German rates followed U.S. rates even more than before the introduction of the euro. In two countries on the northern periphery, Denmark and Sweden, interest rates shadow German rates and the low rates have contributed to rising house prices and rising mortgage debt. Independent monetary policy calls for targeted controls on capital flows.

     

Monetary Policy Analysis in a Small Open Credit-Based Economy

This paper describes a simple framework for monetary policy analysis in a small open economy where bank credit is the only source of external finance. At the heart of the model is the link between banks’ lending rates (which incorporate a premium over and above the marginal cost of borrowing) and firms’ net worth. In contrast to models in the Stiglitz-Weiss or Kiyotaki-Moore tradition, the supply of bank loans is perfectly elastic at the prevailing rate. The central bank sets the refinance rate and provides unlimited access to liquidity at that rate. The model is used to study the effects of changes in official interest rates, under both fixed and flexible exchange rates. Various extensions are also discussed, including income effects, the cost channel, the role of land as collateral, and dollarization.

Monetary Policy in a Small Open Economy with Imperfect Pass-Through

Atlantic Economic Journal - This paper studies the stabilization and welfare properties of various monetary policy regimes in a tractable framework suitable for the analysis of monetary policy in a...     

Price-Taking Monopolies in Small Open Economies

The export sector of a small open economy is assumed to be a price-taking monopoly with increasing long-run average cost and positive profit. Under such conditions, demands for productive factors are shown to slope downward in the general equilibrium of an otherwise competitive economy. Comparative static effects of changing prices and factor endowments are weaker than with a competitive export sector. The comparative static effects involving monopoly profit and outputs are examined.     

Monetary Policy in Illiquid Markets: Options for a Small Open Economy

Two impediments to effective monetary policy operation include illiquidity in bond markets and the zero bound of interest rates. Under these conditions alternative means of enacting monetary policy may be required. This paper empirically explores policy options implemented through equity and currency markets that will generate similar inflation responses at different time horizons. In terms of GDP loss the least costly means of achieving a particular long run inflation outcome is via the current monetary policy arrangements. Currency market alternatives are volatile but less expensive than the equity market in terms of output loss for short term inflation horizons.

Exchange Rate Policy in Small Rich Economies

We look at the exchange rate policy choices and outcomes for small rich economies. Small rich economies face significant policy challenges due to proportionately greater economic volatility than larger economies. These economies usually choose some form of fixed exchange rate regime, particularly in the very small economies where the per capita cost of independent monetary policy is relatively high. When such countries do choose a free or managed floating regime, they appear to derive no benefit from those regimes; their exchange rate volatility seems to rise without any significant change in fundamental economic volatility. Thus, for these countries, floating exchange rates seem to create problems for policy makers without solving any.     

Examining Foreign Aid Fungibility in Small Open Economies

The paper uses a non-scale growth model to examine the behavior of a small open economy to varying degrees of foreign aid fungibility. Shifting government resources to public consumption while allocating the aid to either type of public expenditure or as a pure transfer changes the productivity of the private factors in production. Agents respond, as with any government transfer, by adjusting consumption, debt and work effort. Private capital accumulation slows and the welfare effect dominates. The fungibility results maintain for parameterizations that reflect limited substitution in production and where the public capital externality is small. The analysis, which employs extensive numerical simulations, emphasizes the tradeoffs between long-run capital accumulation and welfare that maintain even when aid is fungible. The simulations highlight the complementarity between foreign aid and public expenditure, the tradeoff between welfare and capital accumulation, and that aid cannot replace the government??s own commitment to financing public expenditure. The results suggest that a policy in which the government is required to maintain its expenditure commitment to public capital yields the highest level effects to capital accumulation, consumption and output.     

Identifying the Liquidity Effects of Monetary Policy Shocks for a Small Open Economy: Turkey

This paper proposes a new liquidity measure for a small open economy. The new measure includes the net liquidity provided to the system by a central bank after accounting for the central bank’s involvement in the foreign exchange market. Empirical evidence gathered from Turkey suggests that a positive innovation in liquidity increases output temporarily and that its effect on prices, exchange rate and money are permanently higher.     

Measuring Monetary Policy in a Small Open Economy with Managed Exchange Rates: The Case of Taiwan

We use sign restrictions to identify monetary policy for a small open economy with heavily managed exchange rates. We apply the proposed sign restrictions to the Taiwanese case, where existing studies tend to find no clear effect of monetary policy shocks on the output and price level. Our principal findings are that a contractionary monetary policy shock causes a permanent and significant decline in real gross domestic product, broad money, and price level. Our identification scheme is able to avoid the puzzling impulse responses from which other identification schemes more or less suffer. The fact that monetary policy has not been correctly identified may have led existing studies to conclude that monetary policy is ineffective.     

Lending Rate Spread Shock and Monetary Policy Arrangements: A Small Open Economy Model for ASEAN Countries

We investigate the welfare implications of monetary policy arrangements in a small open economy, considering firms' bank‐based finances that are widely observed in emerging ASEAN countries. The impact of an unexpected change in the lending rate spread, or a lending rate spread shock, depends on the presence of banking activity in the economy. This presence is important in Malaysia and Vietnam, where welfare effects of this type of shock are at least comparable to those of foreign monetary policy shocks. We also find that a rigid exchange rate arrangement amplifies the effect of a shock.     

A Comparison of Menu Costs in Open and Closed Economies with a Mixed Industrial Structure

In this paper we develop Dixon and Hansen (1997) to allow for two-sector small open economy in which the non-traded sector is monopolistic. The closed economy version of the model generalises Dixon/Hansen to allow for diminishing returns on the traded sector. We compare the short-run impact of menu costs on the economy and also the size of menu costs needed to sustain nominal rigidity in both the open and closed economies. We find that whilst the welfare gains from monetary expansion are of a similar magnitude, nominal rigidity can occur for much smaller menu costs than in the closed economy case. Hence we argue that menu costs and the resultant nominal rigidities are more likely to be important in an open economy.     

The Impact of US Uncertainty Shocks on Small Open Economies

In this paper, we investigate the impact of US uncertainty shocks on GDP growth in nine small open economies: Australia, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden and the United Kingdom. We compare the impact of two types of shocks: i) stock market volatility shocks and ii) policy uncertainty shocks. Using quarterly data from 1986Q1 to 2016Q1, this issue is analysed using Bayesian VAR models. Our results suggest that policy uncertainty seems to matter more than stock market volatility. Stock market volatility shocks appear to robustly have significant effects on Danish GDP growth. Policy uncertainty shocks, on the other hand, reliably lowers GDP growth in all five Nordic countries in a statistically significant manner. Statistically significant effects of policy uncertainty shocks on the Anglo-Saxon countries in our sample are harder to establish and are, in our preferred specification, only found for the United Kingdom.     

支持货币政策的利率期限结构模型

无论从国际还是国内来看,支持货币政策的利率期限结构研究意义重大;对于该问题的近期研究工作主要集中于从利率期限结构中剖析支持货币政策的信息、以及探究货币政策对利率期限结构的影响这两方面,也就是研究利率期限结构作为货币政策信息指示器和传导机制的功能;其中还存在许多重要问题有待于进一步研究。     

Exchange Rate Pass-through,Unemployment and Optimal Implementable Monetary Policy Rule for Emerging Economies

Abstract

This paper develops a small open economy model with nominal rigidities and search-matching frictions to study the implications of exchange rate pass-through for monetary policy in emerging countries. I find that, with complete exchange rate pass-through, the optimal policy rule features unemployment targeting as well as inflation targeting. However, the welfare gain from responding to unemployment fluctuations diminishes as the rate of exchange rate pass-through to import prices decreases. With low exchange rate pass-through, the optimal monetary policy is strict inflation targeting.     

Imperfect Intersectoral Labor Mobility and Monetary Shocks in a Small Open Economy

In this paper, we model the assumption of imperfect labor mobility across sectors in the New Open-Economy Macroeconomics framework to assess its impact on output, inflation, and welfare. Following a permanent home monetary expansion in a small open economy, we find that the above-mentioned assumption leads to: (i) less expansionary effects on (traded) output in the short term, although also less contractionary in the long term; (ii) lower short-term inflation but higher in the long term; and (iii) less intertemporal welfare, with even a ??beggar thyself?? problem being possible.     

Commodity Prices, Inflationary Pressures, and Monetary Policy: Evidence from BRICS Economies

We assess the transmission of monetary policy and the impact of fluctuations in commodity prices on the real economy for the five biggest and fastest growing emerging market economies: Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS). Using modern econometric techniques, we show that a monetary policy contraction has a negative effect on output, suggesting that it can lean against unexpected macroeconomic shocks even when the financial markets are not well-developed in this group of countries. We also uncover the importance of commodity price shocks, which lead to a rise in inflation and demand an aggressive behaviour from central banks towards inflation stabilisation.     

全球金融周期变化对新兴经济体货币政策独立性的影响研究

文章以全球20个新兴经济体2005~2015年年度数据为样本,运用动态面板数据模型GMM方法考察了全球金融周期对于货币政策独立性的影响。研究发现,在金融一体化大背景下,以VIX指数为代表的全球金融周期会显著地影响一国货币政策的独立性,即便采取更为灵活的汇率制度,新兴经济体也无法保证其货币政策的独立性。文章还进一步证实当VIX指数下降时,美联储货币政策对新兴经济体货币政策影响加大,该国中央银行的货币政策独立性将会遭到削弱;当VIX指数上升时,美联储的货币政策对新兴经济体货币政策影响减小,该国中央银行的货币政策独立性将会得到加强。