Do Federal Reserve communications help predict federal funds target rate decisions?

We explain federal funds target rate decisions using macroeconomic variables and Federal Reserve communication indicators. Econometrically, we employ an ordered probit model of a Taylor rule to predict 75 target rate decisions between 1998 and 2006. We find, first, that our communication indicators significantly explain target rate decisions and improve explanatory power in and out of sample. Second, speeches by members of the Board of Governors and regional presidents have a statistically significant and equal-sized effect, whereas the less-frequent monetary policy reports and congressional hearings are insignificant. Third, our findings are robust to variations in the specification, including changes in the communication strategy. Finally, our communication indicator based on Federal Reserve speeches performs better in explaining target rate decisions than do newswire reports of Fed communications.     

美联储应对金融危机的货币政策操作与效果

美国次贷危机发生后,银行体系遭受重创,信贷活动萎缩,市场利率上升,实体经济难以得到资金支持,美国经济陷入了衰退。为了刺激经济复苏,稳定金融市场,修复银行体系,美联储密集地进行货币政策操作,通过各种方式向市场注入流动性。本文对2007年以来美联储所采取的货币政策加以梳理,对其影响进行分析,并提出我国的应对之策。     

Investment behaviour in transition countries and computable general equilibrium models

When applying Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) models to transition economies, it is not plausible to use the standard assumption that the base year data represent stable structural characteristics or even the steady state of the economy. The suggestions forwarded until now to overcome this problem are discussed in this article. An amendment is proposed by modifying the investment modelling within the dynamic CGE setting. The standard formulation of installation costs for capital is extended through the inclusion of adjustment costs that depend on the change of the investment level. Such formulation of the adjustment costs within the dynamic CGE model leads to an investment behaviour that mirrors the empirical data of the first years of the transition.     

The Use of Interactive Video in Teaching Microeconomics: A Note

The interactive-video system described by Bogan may encourage other instructors with large classes to develop and test similar systems of individualized instruction.     

The Pattern of IMF Lending: An Analysis of Prediction Failures

In a constantly changing economic environment, a country's ability to undertake institutional reforms is crucial to maintain economic growth and to promote the welfare of its citizens. A wide range of determinants for institutional reforms have been identified. However, the impact of trust on reforms has not been fully addressed. We provide theoretical arguments why trust should influence institutional changes and test the relationship empirically. We find a significant positive relation between trust and the success of reforms with regard to government size, the legal system, and deregulation of private businesses and the labor market. Other policy fields are ambiguous.     

中国外汇储备对货币政策的影响

20世纪90年代中期以来,我国外汇储备在国际收支双顺差和外汇管理体制改革的推动下超常增长,并成为制约货币政策有效性的重要因素。本文从理论上阐明了在开放经济条件下,外汇储备与货币政策的内在逻辑联系;从实证角度剖析了外汇储备变动对我国货币政策调控的冲击,以及引起汇率政策与货币政策的冲突。我国应改革现行的外汇管理制度,加大公开市场业务操作力度,促使国际收支结构平衡,以提高货币政策实施的自主性和灵活性。     

A bank lending channel or a credit supply shock?

Shifts in credit supply could have a bearing on house prices e.g. through financial innovations and changes in regulation independently of the existence of a bank lending channel of monetary policy. This paper assesses the responses of US house prices to an exogenous credit supply shock and compares them with the effects from variations in credit supply associated with a bank lending channel. The contribution of the study is twofold. First, innovations in credit supply are identified using a mortgage mix variable, thereby accounting for the market-based financial intermediaries. As a robustness check a survey variable of bank lending standards for mortgage loans is also used. Second, the policy-induced credit supply effect on house prices is disentangled and compared with the effect from an exogenous credit supply shock. It is shown that in the first 3 years credit supply shocks affect house prices exogenously rather than through the bank lending channel. Monetary policy has still a large impact on house prices, even when the bank lending channel is ‘turned off’.     

中央银行分支机构设置的国际比较

中央银行在货币经济理论当中的地位相当重要,而其分支机构的设置则更多地是一个实践问题。本文以英、美及欧元区中央银行的发展历史与近期变化为考察对象,从分支机构的设立方式、组织定位、功能与角色三个方面研究其成功的理念和做法,以期对我国的中央银行体制改革提供有益的启示。     

Monetary policy: Why money matters (and interest rates don’t)

Since the late 1980s the Fed has implemented monetary policy by adjusting its target for the overnight federal funds rate. Money’s role in monetary policy has been tertiary, at best. Indeed, several influential economists suggest that money is irrelevant for monetary policy because central banks affect economic activity and inflation by (i) controlling a very short-term nominal interest rate and (ii) influencing financial market participants’ expectation of the future policy rate. I offer an alternative perspective: Money is essential for monetary policy because it is essential for controlling the price level, and the monetary authority’s ability to control interest rates is greatly exaggerated.     

Developing and Implementing an Internet-Based Financial System Simulation Game

Thanks to the Internet and server-side technology such as Active Server Pages (ASP), faculty can develop, implement, and share interactive pedagogy easily and inexpensively. The Financial System Simulator (FSS) is an example of an interactive game that the author has developed. The FSS is an Internet-based, interactive teaching aid that introduces undergraduate students to the domestic and international consequences of monetary policy. Although simulators are common among computer-aided interactive learning devices in today's undergraduate economics curricula, the FSS is different from the others because it allows students, who represent nations, to interact with each other rather than with a computer. The exercise provides users with real-time outcomes based on their decisions, as well as the decisions of other students. According to student surveys, the game helped students understand monetary policy and kept students motivated and interested.     

关于“双顺差”背景下实现中国内外均衡的思考

内外均衡目标是指充分就业、物价稳定、经济增长及国际收支均衡。目前，中国正面临通货紧缩的压力和国际收支双顺差的格局，因此需通过扩张性的财政及货币政策进行协调，同时辅以汇率及利率政策。只有内外兼顾统一才能使经济实现稳定发展。     

MISPERCEPTIONS AND MONETARY POLICY IN A NEW-KEYNESIAN MODEL

This paper studies the consequences for the monetary policy design of information shortages on the part of the private sector. We model these shortages as exogenous shocks to expected income, which through an IS curve, disturb aggregate demand. We constrain policymakers to follow Taylor‐like rules but allow them to optimise coefficients: we find that the presence of misperceptions makes the optimised Taylor rule respond more aggressively to inflation and the output gap. We also find that if the policymaker is uncertain about misperceptions, then it is less costly to assume they are pervasive when they are not than the reverse. In other words, setting policy on the basis that the private sector is subject to misperceptions is a ‘robust’ policy.     

The effect of capital requirement regulation on the transmission of monetary policy: evidence from Austria

This paper analyzes the role of banks’ regulatory capitalization in the transmission of monetary policy. We use a confidential dataset for Austrian banks spanning from the first quarter of 1997 to the fourth quarter of 2003. We find evidence that Austrian banks react in an asymmetric way to monetary policy depending on their regulatory excess capitalization, i.e. low capitalized banks react more restrictively to a monetary tightening than their highly capitalized peers.

Buchanan on monetary constitutions

Buchanan’s reflections on monetary issues have been mostly neglected, despite their great interest both per se and for a deeper understanding of his general constitutional endeavour. We will thus propose a comprehensive assessment of Buchanan’s writings on this topic, focusing in particular on the different political models that have been developed to argue in favour of constitutional constraints on the governmental power to create money and on the implications that one can draw from our author’s monetary papers for the structure and the objectives of his constitutional discourse more generally.

Eurowinners and Eurolosers: The distribution of seigniorage wealth in EMU

The European Monetary Union (EMU) will involve socialization of the existing seigniorage wealth of the national central banks. This socialization will create windfall gains for countries with relatively low monetary bases such as France and the UK and it will be disadvantageous for countries like Germany, Austria, Spain or the Netherlands which will suffer per capita wealth losses of between 406 and 182 ecus. The paper quantifies the gains and losses in seigniorage wealth under alternative membership and bank regulation scenarios.     

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.     

Monetary policy design and transmission asymmetry in EMU: Does uncertainty matter?

In this paper, we consider how uncertainty affects the choice between federal monetary policy based on national and union-wide aggregate data under conditions of asymmetry in the transmission of monetary policy. We find that the uncertainty about the transmission process sustains (and, in some cases, even reinforces) the need to take into account information about national economies in the formulation of monetary policy. Also the forecasting process matters when uncertainty is additive: in particular, when union-wide forecasting is more accurate than national-based forecasting, this advantage can compensate for the welfare loss from using union-wide aggregation. There is, however, a strong case for using national information in the optimal design of common monetary policy.