The cost of capital,asset prices,and the effects of monetary policy

The primary objective of this paper is to study the interaction between monetary policy, asset prices, and the cost of capital. In particular, we explore this issue in a setting where individuals face idiosyncratic risk. Incomplete information also provides a transactions role for money so that monetary policy can be studied. In contrast to standard monetary growth models which focus on the transmission of monetary policy to the demand for capital goods, we incorporate a separate capital goods sector so that the supply response to monetary policy is taken into account. Consequently, in contrast to the standard monetary growth model, monetary policy plays an important role in investment activity through the relative price of capital goods. Moreover, different sources of productivity can affect the degree of risk sharing. Although the optimal money growth rate falls in response to an increase in productivity in either sector of the economy, monetary policy should react more aggressively to the level of productivity in the capital sector.     

货币政策与财政政策的区域产业结构调整效应比较

本文运用1978—2007年东、中、西部的面板数据分析。货币政策和财政政策是否具有区域产业结构调整效应结果显示:第一,财政政策具有产业结构调整效应,而货币政策的产业结构调整效应并不明显。第二,货币政策在对第一和第三产业的效应方面强于财政政策,而财政政策则在对第二产业的效应方面具有优势。第三,货币政策和财政政策对三次产业的效应都存在比较明显的区域效应。第四,在东部地区货币政策和财政政策对第一产业和第二产业的效应相差非常悬殊,而对第三产业的效应则集中在高位;在中部地区货币政策和财政政策对第二产业的效应集中在高位;在西部地区货币政策对第一产业的效应集中在高位,而财政政策对第一产业的效应则集中在低位。     

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.     

The impact of setting negative policy rates on banking flows and exchange rates

In the aftermath of the great contraction of 2008, policymakers were faced with the Zero Lower Bound (ZLB) on nominal interest rates. Central banks implemented several unconventional monetary policies to overcome the ZLB, including setting negative nominal interest rates. This paper explores possible unintended effects of setting negative policy rates. Using Danish data, I assess the impact of paying a negative interest rate on reserves. Results suggest that going into negative territory has a particular impact, distinct from that of simply lowering interest rates: it leads to higher banking outflows and depreciation of the currency. Due to the reluctance of commercial banks to pass on negative rates to their depositors (retail deposits can easily be switched into cash), paying a negative (vs. positive) interest rate on reserves creates a disconnection between the assets and liabilities of commercial banks' balance sheets. Commercial banks can avoid this disconnection by holding external assets or assets in foreign currencies. This incentive to increase banking outflows appears to explain the particular impact of going into negative territory.     

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.     

Financial frictions and optimal stabilization policy in a monetary union

Financial frictions differ across countries and thus cause international differences in the transmission of shocks. This paper shows how the optimal mix of monetary and fiscal policy depends on these country-specific financial frictions. To this end, we build a two-country DSGE-model of a monetary union. Financial frictions are captured by the cost channel approach. We show that the traditional solution to the assignment problem – the common central bank stabilizes the inflation rate at the union level and the national fiscal authorities stabilize the national economies – does not hold in a world with financial frictions. The cost channel decreases the efficiency of monetary policy and increases the need for fiscal stabilization even at the union level. Moreover, the more heterogeneous the union, the more important is fiscal policy in stabilizing shocks. Finally, we evaluate the scenarios in terms of welfare of the representative household.     

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.     

Monetary policy and systemic risk-taking in the euro area banking sector

Available empirical evidence on the significance of the (micro) risk-taking channel of monetary policy is not enough to indicate a threat to financial stability. Evidence of risk-taking with systemic risk implications is necessary. Statistical measures that capture systemic risk in all its forms within a structural factor-augmented vector autoregressive model suggest that conventional and unconventional monetary policies have resulted in systemic risk-taking in the euro area banking sector. Systemic risk has taken the form of an increase in the banking sector’s vulnerability via contagion and interconnectedness. Banks’ balance sheets, however, do not account for the full transmission from (micro) risk taking to systemic risk-taking. The main policy implication is that a persistently accommodative monetary policy may drive a monetary authority with a price stability mandate to consider a possible trade-off with financial stability. At a minimum, coordination between monetary and macro-prudential policies requires serious consideration.     

Analyzing the effects of US monetary policy shocks in dollarized countries

Identifying monetary policy shocks is difficult. Therefore, instead of trying to do this perfectly, this paper exploits a natural setting that reduces the consequences of shock misidentification. It does so by basing conclusions upon the responses of variables in three dollarized countries (Ecuador, El Salvador, and Panama). They import US monetary policy just as genuine US states do, but have the advantage that non-monetary US shocks are not imported perfectly. Consequently, this setting reduces the effects of any mistakenly included non-monetary US shocks, while leaving the effects of true monetary shocks unaffected. Results suggest that prices fall after monetary contractions; output does not show a clear response.     

Should monetary policy respond to asset price misalignments?

This paper analyses the relationship between monetary policy and asset prices using a structural rational expectations open economy model that allows for the effect of asset prices and exchange rates on aggregate demand. We assume that asset prices and exchange rates follow a partial adjustment mechanism whereas they are positively affected by past changes, thus allowing for ‘momentum trading’, while at the same time we allow for reversion towards fundamentals. We then conduct stochastic simulations using two alternative monetary policy rules, inflation-forecast targeting and the standard Taylor rule. The results indicate that, under both rules, interest rate setting that takes into account asset price misalignments leads to lower overall macroeconomic volatility, as measured by the postulated loss function of the central bank.     

Asymmetric effects of monetary policy shocks on economic performance: empirical evidence from Turkey

This study investigates the asymmetric effects of monetary policy shocks on the macroeconomic variables of exchange rate, output and inflation for an emerging economy ? Turkey ? by using monthly data between 1990 and 2014. We employ the innovative nonlinear vector autoregressive model of Kilian and Vigfusson (2011), which allows us to observe the effect of different stances (tight or loose) and different sizes (small or large) of monetary policy actions. Our empirical evidence reveals that tight monetary policy, which, in this case, is captured with a positive shock to interest rate, decreases exchange rate, output and prices, as economic theory suggests. Loose monetary policy, which is captured with a negative shock to interest rate, has the opposite effect on these variables. However, the effects of loose monetary policy are weaker than the effects of tight monetary policy because loose monetary policy shocks are less effective than tight monetary policy shocks. Moreover, as the magnitude of a shock increases, the difference between the effects of tight and loose monetary policy policies also increases.     

The distributive effect of monetary policy: The top one percent makes the difference

The paper evaluates the distributional effect of monetary policy. The empirical analysis is implemented for the USA, where the dynamics in income inequality is mainly driven by the variation in the top one percent of the income distribution. The paper uses the inequality measures that represent the whole income distribution. The distributive effect of monetary policy is evaluated in the cases of different frequency data. To identify a monetary policy shock, the paper applies the contemporaneous and the long run identification methods. In particular, a cointegration relation is determined among the considered variables and the vector error correction methodology is used for the identification. The obtained results indicate that contractionary monetary policy decreases income inequality. These results can have important implications for the design of policies to reduce income inequality by giving more weight to monetary policy.     

Quantitative easing tilts the balance between monetary and macroprudential policy

Quantitative easing by central banks has stimulated risk-taking in financial markets and contributed to a liquidity-driven boom in asset prices. It puts the relation between monetary policy and financial stability into a new perspective. We show by a regression analysis for a panel of 11 advanced economies that an asset price bust has adverse effects on inflation. The effect of stock prices and corporate bond rates on inflation is significant, also if we control for developments in credit. This insight implies that in conducting and implementing quantitative easing, central banks should closely monitor and take into account asset bubbles.     

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.     

Determinacy, stock market dynamics and monetary policy inertia

We study equilibrium determinacy in a New-Keynesian model where the Central Bank responds to asset prices growth. Unlike Taylor-type rules that react to asset prices, the proposed alternative does not harm dynamic stability and in certain cases promotes determinacy by inducing interest-rate inertia.     

Assessing the price and output effects of monetary policy in Vietnam: evidence from a VAR analysis

Using monthly data, we perform a vector-autoregressive analysis to measure the effects of monetary policy on the Vietnamese economy. We concentrate our attention on the period following the introduction of the Law on Central Bank in January 1998 (which brought the national monetary policy and its objectives in line with international practices). Contrary to previous studies on Vietnam, we find evidence suggesting that monetary policy (through the manipulation of interest rates) is an effective policy tool in stabilizing prices. However, credit growth tends to induce inflationary pressures. In addition, we find that an expansion of broad money supply leads to an increase in industrial production.     

The identification of fiscal and monetary policy in a structural VAR

Good economic management depends on understanding shocks from monetary policy, fiscal policy and other sources affecting the economy and their subsequent interactions. This paper presents a new methodology to disentangle such shocks in a structural VAR framework. The method combines identification via sign restrictions, cointegration and traditional exclusion restrictions within a system which explicitly models stationary and non-stationary variables and accounts for both permanent and temporary shocks. The usefulness of the approach is demonstrated on a small open economy where policy makers are actively considering the interaction between monetary and fiscal policies.     

International capital flows,liquidity risk,and monetary policy

In recent years, there has been a large amount of lending coming from the public sector of many developing countries. At the same time, the financial sectors in many advanced countries have issued a large share of portfolio debt to other countries. What are the implications of these events for the global financial system and overall economic activity? Do they have an impact on the transmission channels of monetary policy across countries at different stages of economic development? We investigate these important issues using a micro-founded model of money and banking so that the effects of monetary policy across countries can be meaningfully studied. Notably, the increase in capital outflows to the advanced economy renders monetary policy in developing countries to be less effective, while the effects of monetary policy in advanced economies are more pronounced. Yet, our results indicate that it can indeed be optimal for lower income countries to lend to the advanced world. Importantly, we find that the optimal amount of lending to advanced countries critically depends on the degree of liquidity risk — if it is sufficiently high, then public sector lending to advanced economies is not warranted. Consequently, our results indicate that governments in developing countries should carefully consider how much capital they send abroad to foreign countries.     

Labor immobility and the transmission mechanism of monetary policy in a monetary union

It is believed that a common monetary policy in a monetary union will have identical effects on different countries as long as these countries have identical fundamentals. We show that, when there is specialization in production, the terms of trade react to the shock. The transmission mechanism of a monetary shock has in this case an additional channel, the terms of trade. This is the case even if state contingent assets can be traded across countries. For a reasonable parametrization, the differential on the transmission across countries is quantitatively significant when compared with the effect on the union's aggregates. Monetary shocks create cycles with higher volatility in “poor” countries than in “richer” ones.     

Duration of bankruptcy proceedings and monetary policy effectiveness

A common assumption in well-known costly-state-verification frameworks is that when a borrower defaults, creditors receive a payoff immediately (after incurring bankruptcy costs). While this assumption enhances tractability, it is unrealistic given the considerable delays in the actual practice of bankruptcy. In this paper, I identify the duration of bankruptcy proceedings as an additional source of friction in financial markets and investigate the relationship between this friction and the effectiveness of monetary policy by using U.S. state-level data. Consistent with the commonly-observed positive relationship between the degree of standard financial frictions and the amplitude of macroeconomic responses, I find that U.S. monetary policy is most effective in states with longer bankruptcy proceedings.