Using pre-EMU money market rates to assess monetary policy in the euro area

This note addresses the problems arising when using national pre-EMU interest rate data in the estimation of monetary policy reaction functions for the euro area. We provide evidence that failing to adjust for interest rate risk premia leads to an overestimation of the response of monetary policy both to inflationary pressures and to the output gap. A method for adjusting pre-EMU interest rate data for risk premia is proposed.     

Comparing monetary policy reaction functions: ECB versus Bundesbank

This paper compares the European Central Bank’s (ECB) conduct of monetary policy with that of the Bundesbank. Estimated monetary policy reaction functions show that the ECB reacts similarly to expected inflation but significantly stronger to the output gap than the Bundesbank did. Theoretical considerations suggest that this stronger response to the output gap may rather be due to a higher interest rate sensitivity of the German output gap than to a higher weight given to output stabilisation in the objective function of the ECB. Counterfactual simulations based on the estimated interest rate reaction functions reveal that German interest rates would not have been lower under a hypothetical Bundesbank regime after 1999. However, this conclusion crucially depends on the assumption of an unchanged long-run real interest rate for the EMU period and is reversed when the Bundesbank reaction function is adjusted for the lower long-run real interest rate estimated for the ECB regime.

Macroeconomic dynamics in Macedonia and Slovakia: Structural estimation and comparison

This paper estimates a structural macroeconomic model using data for Macedonia and Slovakia to characterize possible challenges Macedonia can face concerning macroeconomic stabilization during its transition process. A comparison of the estimated model parameters suggests that, in Slovakia, the output gap is less sensitive to real interest rate movements and prices experience greater inertia. The estimated monetary policy reaction functions show Macedonia and Slovakia as inflation targeters, with Macedonia as the more conservative one, despite its officially applied exchange rate targeting regime. The differences in the estimated parameters imply differing transmission mechanisms for Macedonia and Slovakia. Consequently, the variance of domestic variables in Slovakia is most influenced by monetary policy shocks, while there is no single dominating shock explaining the volatility of Macedonia's macroeconomic variables. The exchange rate shock, the monetary policy shock and the demand shock are jointly important in determining the volatility of Macedonia's variables. The model simulations indicate that Macedonia experiences lower output gap and inflation volatility than Slovakia. This comes, nevertheless, at the cost of higher interest rate and real exchange rate volatility in Macedonia, which could be an indication of more volatile financial markets with possible negative implications for financial stability.     

Cross‐country asymmetries in monetary policy transmission: evidence from EMU members

This paper analyzes monetary policy asymmetries in EMU participating countries. In particular, we use a structural dynamic modelling approach to investigate asymmetric monetary transmission in Europe. Asymmetries are investigated in two different ways. First, we restrict the estimated structural models reflecting the monetary constraints each country faced during the EMS period. We obtain well‐behaved and comparable effects of monetary policy shocks. Second, efficiency frontiers for the selected EMU countries are estimated. In computing the optimal combinations of output gap and inflation volatility we use a weighted average of interest rate and exchange rate, i.e. the Monetary Condition Index (MCI), as a policy instrument. The impulse response analysis implemented with the MCI shows relatively small differences in the responses of the real economy to monetary policy shocks. Altogether the results suggest that, no matter which policy instrument is used, output gap and inflation respond to identical monetary shocks with a similar speed and movement, albeit with a different degree of effect.     

Inflation Dynamics in India: Relative Role of Structural and Monetary Factors

This paper examines the relative role of structural and monetary factors in the variation of inflation in India over the period 1996–1997:Q1 to 2013–2014:Q4. The paper finds that both the monetary factors and the output gap has significant role. The role of the output gap in inflation is found more prominent than the monetary factors like broad money growth, interest rate and change in exchange rate. The depreciation of exchange rate and broad money growth stimulates inflation where as the interest rate is identified as an anti-inflationary monetary instrument. In view of a comprehensive policy for price stability, it is imperative to know the role of sectoral output gap in inflation. The paper, therefore, enquires the relative role of the primary, secondary and tertiary sector output gap in inflation. Output gap of each of these three sectors provokes inflation where the contribution of tertiary sector output gap is found to be the maximum followed by the primary sector and the secondary sector output gap. The prominent role of the output gap and comparatively passive role of monetary factors does not necessarily imply a non-effective monetary policy but suggests that controlling inflation only through the monetary management may not be effective.

     

Interest rate reaction functions for the euro area

Estimating interest rate reaction functions for the euro area is still hampered by the short time span since the conduct of a single monetary policy. This is why estimates of union-wide reaction functions are usually based on historical pre-EMU data. In this paper we circumvent the common use of aggregated data before 1999 by estimating interest rate reaction functions based on a panel including actual EMU Member States. We find that exploiting the cross-section dimension of a multi-country panel and accounting for cross-country heterogeneity in advance of the single monetary policy improves the ability of historical reaction functions to describe actual interest rate dynamics. We retrieve a panel reaction function which is employed for evaluating interest rate setting since 1999.     

前瞻性货币政策的微观传导机制有效吗*——来自中国上市企业资产负债表的证据

本文根据新古典资本需求理论和实际余额效应理论建立了一个包含投资需求和投资效率的前瞻性泰勒规则模型,并构造了一个反映企业投融资需求状况的企业综合状况指数,将其引入扩展的前瞻性泰勒规则模型,然后从宏观和行业两个层面对加入企业综合状况指数的前瞻性泰勒规则进行了检验和比较。研究发现：（1）前瞻性利率传导的企业资产负债表渠道基本有效,短期名义利率对于超过80%行业的企业综合状况指数缺口的反应系数显著,但对不同行业的反应差异较大;（2）短期利率对企业综合状况的反应系数较小,而对通胀缺口和产出缺口的反应系数相对较高,显示货币当局调整利率可能更多的是针对通胀缺口和产出缺口反应;（3）货币政策对资产价格“反应不足”,其对股价的反应系数非常小,对房价的反应系数不显著。     

Does the Reserve Bank of Australia follow a forward-looking nonlinear monetary policy rule?

ABSTRACT

The conventional monetary policy rule describes a simple linear relationship between the domestic interest rate, inflation rate and output gap. An important extension to this rule is to incorporate the forward-looking behaviour of central banks, where it is assumed that they target an expected level of inflation instead of its current realised value. Using quarterly observations for the period 1993:1-2018:2, this paper investigates whether the conduct of monetary policy in Australia can be described by a forward-looking linear monetary policy rule, or by a nonlinear forward-looking monetary policy rule. In particular, the nonlinear forward-looking monetary policy rule is analysed in a regime-switching framework using a smooth logistic transition regression model. While the results show that the conventional forward-looking linear monetary policy rule describes the application of monetary policy in Australia reasonably well, the interest rate setting behaviour of the RBA is best described by a nonlinear forward-looking monetary policy rule.     

Risk and Policy Shocks on the US Term Structure

We document two stylized facts of US short‐term and long‐term interest rate data seemingly incompatible with the expectations hypothesis: low contemporaneous cross‐correlation and relatively slow adjustment to long‐run relationships. We explain these features in a small structural model with three types of randomness: While a persistent monetary policy shock implies immediate identical reactions through the term structure, both a transitory policy shock and an autocorrelated risk premium allow for sustained deviations. Indeed, we find important impacts and persistence of risk premia and considerable contribution of transitory policy shocks to short rates. Results of standard expectations hypothesis tests can be rationalized.     

Estimating the natural rate of interest in an open economy

The concept of the natural or equilibrium rate of interest has attracted a lot of attention from monetary policymakers in recent years. Most attempts to estimate the natural rate use a closed-economy framework. We argue that in the face of greater integration of global product and capital markets, an open economy framework is more appropriate. We provide some initial estimates of the natural rate for the USA and Japan in a two-country framework. Our identifying assumptions include a close relationship between the time-varying natural rate of interest and the low-frequency fluctuations of potential output growth in both the home country and the foreign country. Our results suggest that the natural rates in both countries are mainly determined by their own trend growth rates of potential output. Nevertheless, the other country’s trend growth plays an important role in several specific periods. The gap between the actual real interest rate and our estimated natural rate offers valuable insights into the recent stance of monetary policy in both of these two countries.     

Financial innovations and the future of monetary policy in Nigeria

This paper examines the implications of financial innovations on Nigeria’s monetary policy, using: trend analysis, error correction mechanism, and a structural model estimated with generalized method of moments. The study found that financial innovation improves the interest rate channel of monetary policy transmission, and the efficiency of the financial system. However, it increases the output gap and adds an element of uncertainty in the monetary policy environment as it increases the cost of implementing monetary policy and impinges on the potency of the operating target through its impact on the stability of the money multiplier, money velocity, and demand for money.     

Does monetary policy affect the long-run expectations of non-stationary real interest rates?

In this article, we analyse whether the monetary policy affects the long-run expectation of the non-stationary real interest rate. The analysis is conducted through Beveridge–Nelson trend decomposition within a cointegrated vector autoregressive model based on the New Keynesian framework. We suggest an augmented test of the conventional co-integration test on the non-stationarity of the real interest rate, which checks whether the co-integration coefficient of inflation is one and the output gap affects the co-integration equilibrium of the nominal interest rate. We further suggest decomposing the long-run expectation of the non-stationary real interest rate into three trends: the interest rate shock (including the monetary shock), inflation shock and output gap shock. According to empirical analyses using monthly US data after the Korean War, the long-run expectation of the non-stationary real interest rate contains an interest rate shock trend and the impulse of the federal fund target rate induces a significant response of the interest rate shock trend. However, the interest rate shock trend has a very small portion of the long-run expectation of the non-stationary real interest rate, which may explain why the monetary policy was not particularly effective in the economic recovery after the global financial crisis.     

The role of the exchange rate in Canadian monetary policy: evidence from a TVP-BVAR model

A time-varying parameters Bayesian structural vector autoregression (TVP-BVAR) model with stochastic volatility is employed to characterize the monetary policy stance of the Bank of Canada (BoC) in terms of an interest rate rule linking the policy rate to the output gap, inflation and the exchange rate. Using quarterly bilateral Canadian–US data, we find such an interest rate rule to have little explanatory power for the early part of our sample starting in the mid-1980s, but to become more suitable to explain interest rate dynamics from the mid-1990s onwards. Whereas the exchange rate turns out to be the major determinant of the policy rate in the 1980s, its importance declines throughout the 1990s and 2000s, although it continues to be influential even towards the end of the sample period ending in 2015Q2. We also find interest rate shocks to have become more effective in influencing the macroeconomy over time, indicating that the BoC has continually gained monetary policy credibility. We associate this development with the BoC successively de-emphasizing the role of the exchange rate in informing interest rate decisions, thereby alleviating the potential monetary policy conflict between targeting the exchange rate and maintaining the price stability goal.     

The natural rate of interest and the output gap in the euro area: a joint estimation

The notion of a natural real rate of interest, due to Wicksell (Interest and prices. Macmillan, London Translation of 1898 edition, 1936), is widely used in current central bank research. The idea is that there exists a level at which the real interest rate would be compatible with output at its potential level and stationary inflation. Such a concept is of primary concern for monetary policy because it provides a benchmark for the monetary policy stance. This paper applies the method suggested by Laubach and Williams (Rev Econ Stat 85(4):1063–1070, 2003) to jointly estimate the natural real interest rate and the output gap in the euro area using data from 1960 onwards. Our results suggest that the natural real rate of interest has declined gradually over the past 40 years. They also indicate that monetary policy in the euro area was on average stimulative during the 1960s and the 1970s, while it contributed to dampen the output gap and inflation in the 1980s and 1990s. The views expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the institutions to which they are affiliated. We are grateful to Siem Jan Koopman for very helpful suggestions and comments. We also thank P. Cour-Thimann, V. Curdia, F. Drudi, S. McCaw, D. Rodriguez-Palenzuela, R. Pilegaard, H. Pill, L. Stracca, T. Laubach, J. C. Williams and the participants of an ECB workshop on natural interest rates.     

Monetary policy through the ‘credit-cost channel’: Italy and Germany pre- and post-EMU

We present an empirical analysis of the ‘Credit-Cost Channel’ (CCC) of monetary policy transmission. This channel combines bank credit supply and interest rates on loans as a cost to firms. The thrust of the CCC is that it makes both aggregate demand and aggregate supply dependent on monetary policy. As a consequence (1) credit market conditions (e.g. risk spreads) are important sources and indicators of macroeconomic shocks, (2) the real effects of monetary policy are larger and persistent. We have applied the Cointegrated Vector Autoregression (CVAR) econometric methodology to Italy and Germany in the ‘hard’ EMS period and in the European Monetary Union (EMU) period. The short-run and long-run effects of the CCC are detectable for both countries in both periods. Simulation of the estimated model also confirms that inflation-targeting by way of inter-bank rate control stabilizes inflation through structural shifts of the stochastic equilibrium paths of both inflation and the output.     

Interest rates,government purchases and the Taylor rule in recessions and expansions

In this paper we study asymmetries in the Taylor rule for the United States during the 1970–2012 period. We show that monetary authorities have been constantly concerned with excess demand in overheated periods – when the output gap is positive or the unemployment rate falls below 7% or 7.5% – raising the interest rate aggressively in that case. However, the Fed seems more reluctant to decrease the fund’s rate during recessions. On the contrary, monetary authorities react symmetrically and forcefully to inflation in booms and busts. Finally, we provide evidence that an expansionary fiscal policy does not lead to an increase in interest rates, and thus there is not necessary a “crowding-out” effect in recessions.     

Contemporary Monetary Policy in China: An Empirical Assessment

This paper focuses on monetary policy in China. A set of different specifications for the monetary policy reaction function are empirically evaluated using monthly data for 1998–2014. Overall, the performance of the estimated policy rules is surprisingly good. Chinese monetary policy displays countercyclical reactions to inflation and leaning‐against‐the‐wind behaviour. The paper shows a notable increase in the overall responsiveness of Chinese monetary policy over the course of the estimation period. The central bank interest rate is unresponsive to economic conditions during the earlier years of the sample, but response becomes significant in later years. This finding comports with the view that the monetary policy of the People's Bank of China has come to place greater weight on price‐based instruments. A time‐varying estimation procedure suggests that the two monetary policy objectives are generally assigned to different instruments. The money supply instrument continues to be utilized to control the price level. Since 2008, the interest rate instrument has been mainly used to achieve the targeted output growth.     

Monetary policy before and after the euro: evidence from Greece

We model Greek monetary policy in the 1990s and use our findings to address two interrelated questions. First, how was monetary policy conducted in the 1990s so that the hitherto highest-inflation EU country managed to join the euro by 2001? Second, how compatible is the ECB monetary policy with Greek economic conditions? We find that Greek monetary policy in the 1990s was: (i) primarily determined by German/ECB interest rates, though still influenced by domestic fundamentals; (ii) involving non-linear output gap effects; (iii) subject to a deficit of credibility culminating in the 1998 devaluation. On the question of compatibility our findings depend on the value assumed for the equilibrium post-euro real interest rate and overall indicate both a reduction in the pre-euro risk premium and some degree of monetary policy incompatibility. Our analysis has policy implications for the new EU members and motivates further research on fast-growing EMU economies.     

A time-varying “natural” rate of interest for the euro area

We estimate a time-varying “natural” rate of interest (TVNRI) for a synthetic euro area over the period 1979Q1-2004Q4 using a small macroeconomic model, broadly following a methodology developed by Laubach and Williams [2003. Measuring the natural rate of interest. The Review of Economics and Statistics 85(4), 1063-1070] for the United States. The Kalman filter simultaneously estimates the output gap and the natural rate of interest. Our identifying assumptions include a close relationship between the TVNRI and the low-frequency fluctuations of potential output growth. The difference between the real rate of interest and its estimated natural level offers valuable insights into the monetary policy stance over the last two decades and a half.