Evolving dynamics of the relationship between US core inflation and unemployment

Labor market dynamics in the US are changing due to long-term factors including decelerating labor force growth, rising age of the labor force, and the rapid advance of e-commerce, as well as the one-time downward adjustment during 2009–2013 of the size of state and local government work forces. We discuss some of the controversies revolving around how to analyze labor markets in this dynamic environment from the perspective of monetary policymaking, given the dual mandate of the Federal Reserve to encourage both full employment and price stability.Our statistical research documents the changing association between US unemployment and core inflation. There was a perceived trade-off between inflation and unemployment in the 1950s and 1960s that gave way to stagflation in the 1970s, when both unemployment and inflation were rising. The 1980s were a transition period where the trade-off was perceived to have returned. This trade-off has not been so clear, however, when one looks at the last twenty years. Since 1995, a period of stable and low inflation was consistently observed despite considerable cycles in the unemployment rate.Our theoretical discussion provides a dynamic interpretation of the shifting nature of labor markets, with the objective of pointing the way for future research while highlighting crucial differences in possible interpretations that could fuel debate, both inside and outside the Fed, over how the Fed should manage its dual mandate. The dynamic changes being seen in US labor markets all suggest that the effectiveness of monetary policy to encourage full employment may be vastly overstated. If this interpretation is correct, the Fed may need to reconsider how to manage its dual mandate and react less aggressively to perceived labor slack that may be due to longer-term structural shifts over which the Fed has no influence.     

美联储百年沧桑:目标、框架与可信度

在美联储成立百年之际,现任美联储主席伯南克系统回顾了过去100年中美联储在政策目标、政策框架、可信度和沟通方面的变革。成立初期,美联储以维护金融稳定为目标的政策框架主要受实质票据学说和金本位制度的影响。大萧条时期,促进就业和价格稳定逐渐成为美联储的新目标。大通胀和大通缩时期,获得货币政策独立性的美联储控制通胀的能力逐步成熟。大稳健时期,货币政策目标和框架更加清晰,货币政策透明度逐渐提高。金融危机以来,维持金融稳定上升到与货币政策同等重要的位置,货币政策透明度明显改善,预期管理日益重要。未来,中央银行的理念和实践还将不断变革。     

How to Weigh Unemployment Relative to Inflation in Monetary Policy?

The monetary policy mandate for the Federal Reserve and of the Riksbank are essentially the same and boil down to stabilizing inflation around the inflation target and employment or unemployment around a long‐run sustainable rate. The relative weight on stabilizing unemployment or employment versus stabilizing inflation may be close to one. A positive unemployment‐gap forecast normally calls for a positive inflation‐gap forecast.     

Mainstream Economic Analysis and the Case for Accommodation

The Federal Reserve has a dual mandate to foster both full employment and price stability. Most often these two goals are in alignment, so policies that support one objective generally support the other. However, at times the two aims can be at odds. When that happens, policies that target one goal may lead to misses on the other one. This article argues that taking a balanced approach between competing choices provides a solution that is in agreement with mainstream monetary policy rules.     

The Taylor Rule and “Opportunistic” Monetary Policy

We investigate the possibility that the Taylor rule should be formulated as a threshold process such that the Federal Reserve acts more aggressively in some circumstances than in others. It seems reasonable that the Federal Reserve would act more aggressively when inflation is high than when it is low. Similarly, it might be expected that the Federal Reserve responds more to a negative than a positive output gap. Although these specifications receive some empirical support, we find that a modified threshold model that is consistent with “opportunistic” monetary policy makes significant progress toward explaining Federal Reserve behavior.     

再析美国金融危机前的利率政策

全球金融危机与美国货币政策的变化密不可分,从低利率货币信贷扩张的流动性过剩到高利率的流动性紧缩,使宏观经济产生剧烈波动,前期低利率带来过剩的流动性,后期利率的提高造成巨量房地产泡沫的破灭。让美联储无视资产泡沫的原因是美联储货币政策一贯秉持的"泰勒规则"指导原则没有纳入资产价格因子,致使美联储货币政策调控失误。     

Nominal GDP Targeting and the Taylor Rule on an Even Playing Field

Some economists advocate nominal GDP targeting as an alternative to the Taylor Rule. These arguments are largely based on the idea that nominal GDP targeting would require less knowledge on the part of policymakers than a traditional Taylor Rule. In particular, a nominal GDP targeting rule would not require real-time knowledge of the output gap. We examine the importance of this claim by amending a standard New Keynesian model to assume that the central bank has imperfect information about the output gap and therefore must forecast the output gap based on previous information. Forecast errors by the central bank can then potentially induce unanticipated changes in the short-term nominal interest rate, distinct from a standard monetary policy shock. We show that forecast errors of the output gap by the Federal Reserve can account for up to 13% of the fluctuations in the output gap. In addition, our simulations imply that a nominal GDP targeting rule would produce lower volatility in both inflation and the output gap in comparison with the Taylor Rule under imperfect information.     

Bank mergers: What should policymakers do?

These remarks discuss why the “cluster” of financial services and local banking markets are still relevant for antitrust analysis in banking. A key portion of the Federal Reserve’s Order approving the NationsBank–Barnett merger is interpreted, and the extent to which antitrust is a practical constraint on the development of a nationwide banking structure is commented upon.     

Can central banks’ monetary policy be described by a linear (augmented) Taylor rule or by a nonlinear rule?

The original Taylor rule establishes a simple linear relation between the interest rate, inflation and the output gap. An important extension to this rule is the assumption of a forward-looking behaviour of central banks. Now they are assumed to target expected inflation and output gap instead of current values of these variables. Using a forward-looking monetary policy reaction function, this paper analyses whether central banks’ monetary policy can indeed be described by a linear Taylor rule or, instead, by a nonlinear rule. It also analyses whether that rule can be augmented with a financial conditions index containing information from some asset prices and financial variables. The results indicate that the monetary behaviour of the European Central Bank and Bank of England is best described by a nonlinear rule, but the behaviour of the Federal Reserve of the United States can be well described by a linear Taylor rule. Our evidence also suggests that only the European Central Bank is reacting to financial conditions.     

美国第二轮量化宽松货币政策的影响及中国对策

美联储第二轮量化宽松货币政策预计对美国经济的刺激作用有限,并会对其他国家特别是新兴市场带来较严重的负面溢出效应。其中,美元泛滥可能引发较为严重的通货膨胀,并刺激贸易保护主义抬头。中国需要采取＂堵疏结合、攻防有序＂的手段,严格监控风险度高的短期流动资金,将长期资金流入有效疏导到金融短板加以利用,力保经济平稳较快发展。同时,应加强与国际社会的协作,对美国量化宽松政策形成一定的制约。     

银行综合经营财务效应实证研究

本轮金融危机后,美国沃克尔法则的提出引发了金融界强烈的争议,对银行综合经营问题的探讨具有了新的时代意义。本文采用美国资产10亿美元以上的约70家一级银行控股公司2000年到2009年的季度财务数据,对综合经营实际财务效应进行了实证研究,验证了银行综合经营对于银行控股公司资本利润率的增长的确存在正面的影响,但这种影响可能被银行非利息收入占比提高的负面影响抵销。     

O.M.W. Sprague (the man who “wrote the book” on financial crises) and the founding of the Federal Reserve

O.M.W. Sprague was America's leading expert on financial crises when America was debating establishing the Federal Reserve. His History of Crises under the National Banking System is the most enduring intellectual legacy of the National Monetary Commission; a still frequently cited classic. Since the Commission recommended a central bank, and its recommendation after some modifications became the Federal Reserve System, it might be assumed that Sprague was a strong supporter of establishing a central bank. But he was not. Initially, Sprague favored far more limited reforms, a position that he did not abandon until the Federal Reserve became a fait accompli. Here I discuss the sources of Sprague's opposition to a central bank and the relationship of that opposition to his understanding of the history and structure of the American banking system at the turn of the nineteenth century.     

美国开放式保护主义及我国银行业安全的法律规制

美国银行业安全的法律规制经历了近百年的演进,形成了以紧跟金融创新发展步伐的渐进性,维护国家金融主权的保护性,寻求体制内各种法律制度互补的平衡性为特征的开放式保护主义法律规制体系.借鉴美国经验,我国在金融开放,实现金融现代化的进程中,也应以公益性、安全性、程序性等诉求为依据,以法律法规的定向约束为手段,以国家利益至上为宗旨,以对国外竞争者设置制度化的市场障碍和金融市场参与者稳健经营为目的,对我国银行业安全法律规制进行完善,以维护国家金融安全.     

Financial stress and economic dynamics: The transmission of crises

A financial stress index for the United States is introduced—one used by the staff of the Federal Reserve Board during the financial crisis of 2008–2009—and its׳ interaction with real activity, inflation and monetary policy is investigated using a Markov-switching VAR model, estimated with Bayesian methods. A “stress event” is defined as a period of adverse latent Markov states. Results show that time variation is statistically important, that stress events line up well with historical events, and that shifts to stress events are highly detrimental for the economy. Conventional monetary policy is shown to be weak during such periods.     

金融危机条件下美联储新货币政策工具的运用

次贷危机爆发后,美联储根据本国金融市场变化情况,在《联邦储备法令》的授权下,创设了包括定期标售工具、定期证券借贷工具、一级交易商信用工具、货币市场投资者融资工具在内的7种新型货币政策工具,旨在为各类金融机构提供流动性支持,鼓励金融机构的放贷积极性,及恢复金融市场功能。该文详细介绍这些新型货币政策工具的操作规则及市场功能。     

美联储“量化宽松”货币政策的原因、影响与启示

为应对全球金融危机,美联储实施了非常时期的量化宽松货币政策。本文对美联储实施该政策的原因、积极和消极影响进行了深入分析。同时,美联储未雨绸缪,提出该政策的退出机制,对我国今后一段时期如何在经济逐步启稳后把握恰当的时机和节奏实现适度宽松货币政策的及时转向,防范通货膨胀和资产泡沫风险具有非常重要的启示。     

The future and dynamics of global systemically important banks

The purpose of this paper is to analyse some of the issues associated with supervision and regulation of global systemically important banks, G-SIB. The paper highlights the importance of managing liquidity risk and creating a global financial system that can minimise regulatory arbitrage by large financial institutions. The paper argues that, unlike some industries such as the airline industry in which risk has been contained and yet the size and capacity of aircrafts have increased, in the banking system, less progress has been made to contain financial risk and allow large banks to expand their global activities. The paper argues that G-SIB are able to continue remaining large provided that a globally integrated financial system ensures effective global supervision of these large banks. The paper compares the US banking crises in the 19th century and the subsequent emergence of the US Federal Reserve System to the possibility of establishing a world central bank and a global supervisory board. Such new global institutions will have the capacity to reduce regulatory arbitrage, increase effective supervision, reduce systemic and liquidity risk and create a more stable global financial system.     

The mechanics of a graceful exit: Interest on reserves and segmentation in the federal funds market

To combat the financial crisis that intensified in the fall of 2008, the Federal Reserve injected a substantial amount of liquidity into the banking system. The resulting increase in reserve balances exerted downward price pressure in the federal funds market, and the effective federal funds rate began to deviate from the target rate set by the Federal Open Market Committee. In response, the Federal Reserve revised its operational framework for implementing monetary policy and began to pay interest on reserve balances in an attempt to provide a floor for the federal funds rate. Nevertheless, following the policy change, the effective federal funds rate remained below not only the target but also the rate paid on reserve balances. We develop a model to explain this phenomenon and use data from the federal funds market to evaluate it empirically. In turn, we show how successful the Federal Reserve may be in raising the federal funds rate even in an environment with substantial reserve balances.