Monetary policy and the daily behavior of interest rates

It is possible that previous research has failed to detect significant variation in the ex-ante real interest rate because the Federal Reserve follows a policy designed to stabilize the real rate. If the Fed is successful, there will be little month-to-month variation in the real rate. Nonetheless, research to date has relied on monthly or quarterly data. This paper presents the results of new tests that use daily data in an attempt to detect short-term variation in the ex-ante real rate. Though the tests reveal that the real rate is not constant, most of the detected variation is related to reserve settlement on Wednesday.     

Imperfect asset substitutability and monetary policy under fixed exchange rates

This paper presents a long-run model of the open economy in a world of fixed exchange rates and imperfect substitutability between bonds denominated in different currencies. The model explicitly accounts for the wealth flow accompanying current-account imbalance and for the flow of interest payments associated with international lending. Both the dynamic and steady-state implications of the model are quite different from those of models that specify the capital account as a continuing flow responding to the level of interest rates. In particular, we find that when there exists outside government debt, open-market policy is not in general neutral in the long run. We also find conditions under which the central bank is able to hold the domestic price level constant in the face of an inflationary disturbance from abroad without exhausting, in the long run, its stock of domestic assets.     

Regime-switching and interest rates in the European monetary system

This paper examines the impact that a currency target zone has on short-term interest rates. For a number of countries in the European Monetary System, we characterize the short rate using a regime-switching model that allows for a differently parameterized mean-reverting square-root process in each regime. We find that the volatility, the level, and the speed-of-adjustment are all higher in the regime that is operative during speculative attacks and currency crises. Moreover, we allow the conditional probability of being in each regime to be state-dependent so the model can be used to examine questions relating to the likelihood of realignments and the stability of the target zone system.     

The short run efficacy of monetary policy under floating exchange rates reconsidered

This paper disputes the argument that the short-run effectiveness of monetary policy in stabilizing domestic output under floating rates is necessarily reduced if elasticities of demand for imports and exports with respect to the current exchange rate are low and capital flows depend on the exchange rate. It is shown that the relative efficacy of monetary changes is determined by the interest rate elasticity of international interest payments and receipts and the effect of exchange rate variations on the demand for money in addition to the exchange rate elasticities of trade and capital flows.     

Some doubts about the efficacy of monetary policy under flexible exchange rates

This paper raises doubts about the proposition that monetary policy is effective, under flexible exchange rates, in stabilizing domestic output. It is argued that if the price elasticities of the demands for exports and imports are affected by the transition to flexible rates, and capital flows are assumed to be dependent on the exchange rate, the efficacy of monetary policy under flexible rates will not necessarily follow.     

Monetary policy and U.S. long-term interest rates: How close are the linkages?

The effect of monetary policy on long-term interest rates has been a question of interest in recent years. A number of papers, relying on single-equation estimation techniques, have presented evidence that long-term interest rates exhibit sizable and significant responses to unanticipated changes in the Federal Reserve's target federal funds rate. This paper examines these findings in light of conflicting findings from VAR studies, which indicate negligible effects of innovations in the federal funds rate on long-term rates. To address the issue we use a single-equation approach where unanticipated changes in the federal funds rate are measured as residuals from policy reaction functions. We also estimate VAR specifications, which incorporate information about the timing of changes in the Federal Reserve's target federal funds rate. Our single-equation estimates provide evidence of strong responses of long rates to unanticipated changes in the federal funds rate both for the Greenspan period and for a longer period back to the mid-1960s. It seems likely that estimated VARs for the post-1987 years are less successful in isolating monetary policy surprises than was the case for earlier years.     

Monetary policy and long‐term interest rates: Evidence from the U.S. economy

This paper addresses the ability of central banks to affect the structure of interest rates. We assess the causal relationship between the short‐term Effective Federal Funds Rate (FF) and long‐term interest rates associated with both public and private bonds and specifically, the 10‐Year Treasury Bond (GB10Y) and the Moody's Aaa Corporate Bond (AAA). To do this, we apply Structural Vector Autoregressive models to U.S. monthly data for the 1954–2018 period. Based on results derived from impulse response functions and forecast error variance decomposition, we find: a bidirectional relationship when GB10Y is considered as the long‐term rate and a unidirectional relationship that moves from short‐ to long‐term interest rates when AAA is considered. These conclusions show that monetary policy is able to permanently affect long‐term interest rates and the central bank has a certain degree of freedom in setting the levels of the short‐term policy rate.     

Optimal monetary policy in a currency union with interest rate spreads

We introduce “financial imperfections” – asymmetric net wealth positions, incomplete risk-sharing, and interest rate spreads across member countries – in a prototypical two-country currency union model and study implications for monetary policy transmission mechanism and optimal policy. In addition to, and independent from, the standard transmission mechanism associated with nominal rigidities, financial imperfections introduce a wealth redistribution role for monetary policy. Moreover, the two mechanisms reinforce each other and amplify the effects of monetary policy. On the normative side, financial imperfections, via interactions with nominal rigidities, generate two novel policy trade-offs. First, the central bank needs to pay attention to distributional efficiency in addition to macroeconomic (and price level) stability, which implies that a strict inflation targeting policy of setting union-wide inflation to zero is never optimal. Second, the interactions lead to a trade-off in stabilizing relative consumption versus the relative price gap (the deviation of relative prices from their efficient level) across countries, which implies that the central bank allows for less flexibility in relative prices. Finally, we consider how the central bank should respond to a financial shock that causes an increase in the interest rate spread. Under optimal policy, the central bank strongly decreases the deposit rate, which reduces aggregate and distributional inefficiencies by mitigating the drop in output and inflation and the rise in relative consumption and prices. Such a policy response can be well approximated by a spread-adjusted Taylor rule as it helps the real interest rate track the efficient rate of interest.     

Global monetary policy under a dollar standard

This paper derives an optimal monetary policy in a world with a dollar standard, defined as an environment in which all traded goods prices are set in US dollars, so that exchange rate pass-through into the US price level is zero. We show that the US is essentially indifferent to exchange rate volatility, while the rest of the world places a high weight on exchange rate volatility. In a Nash equilibrium of the monetary policy game, US preferences dominate; the equilibrium is identical to one where the US alone chooses world monetary policy. Despite this, we find surprisingly that the US loses from the dollar's role as an international currency, since the absence of exchange rate pass-through leads to inefficient expenditure allocations within the US. Finally, we derive the conditions for a dollar standard to exist.     

Monetary and fiscal policy interactions in a micro-founded model of a monetary union

This paper analyzes in detail the mechanisms behind fiscal stabilization policy and the role of policy commitment in a micro-founded New-Keynesian model of a two-country monetary union, which is hit by supply shocks. We also explore the determinants of the gains from fiscal stabilization. While monetary policy with identical union members is concerned with stabilizing the union-wide economy, fiscal policy aims at stabilizing inflation differences and the terms of trade. Besides exploring optimal policies, we also consider monetary and fiscal rules. We study these rules both under coordination and non-coordination by the fiscal authorities.     

Monetary and fiscal policy interactions in a micro-founded model of a monetary union

This paper analyzes in detail the mechanisms behind fiscal stabilization policy and the role of policy commitment in a micro-founded New-Keynesian model of a two-country monetary union, which is hit by supply shocks. We also explore the determinants of the gains from fiscal stabilization. While monetary policy with identical union members is concerned with stabilizing the union-wide economy, fiscal policy aims at stabilizing inflation differences and the terms of trade. Besides exploring optimal policies, we also consider monetary and fiscal rules. We study these rules both under coordination and non-coordination by the fiscal authorities.     

我国货币政策是否要应对资产价格泡沫

研究结果表明,我国货币增长与房价上涨之间存在着显著的互为因果关系,货币供给对上证综指存在着单向因果关系.因此,货币政策应对房市泡沫必须采取事前应对策略,而对股市泡沫可以采取事后应对策略.针对房价泡沫,货币政策应采取及时紧缩货币措施进行干预,甚至可以采用刺破泡沫的极端手段.     

Measuring China's monetary policy uncertainty and its impact on the real economy

This paper proposes a measure of China's monetary policy uncertainty (MPU) based on a Bayesian MCMC estimation procedure, investigates the economic impact of MPU, and outlines the impact channels. Empirical findings suggest that MPU depresses China's economy via higher credit risk and lower economic growth. Moreover, the decrease in output is amplified and made more persistent when the economy is simultaneously exposed to higher credit risk. Because China has experienced massive credit expansion over the past decades, the economy is currently more vulnerable to the increase in MPU than it ever was.     

Short-term and long-term interest rates in a monetary model of a small open economy

This paper analyzes the effects of both anticipated and unanticipated monetary and fiscal disturbances on the dynamic behavior of a monetary model of a small open economy. It focuses on the adjustment of the short-term and long-term interest rates and the divergence of their transitional paths, particularly in anticipation of these disturbances. The analysis demonstrates how anticipation of a future policy change can generate perverse short-run behavior. The essential reason for the divergence between the short and long rates is that the latter is dominated by long-term expectations, while the former is primarily determined by current influences.     

Financial stability and monetary policy

Business Economics - Financial conditions should be an important component of the Fed’s monetary policy reaction function. I don’t think financial stability is a goal that really...     

Instrument rules in monetary policy under heterogeneity in currency trade

We embed different instrument rules into Galí and Monacelli’s new Keynesian model for a small open economy that is augmented with technical trading in currency trade to examine the prerequisites for monetary policy. Specifically, conditions for a determinate and least squares learnable REE are in focus. When a contemporaneous data specification of the rule is used in policy-making, the degree of trend following in currency trade does not affect these conditions, except in case of an extensive use of trend following, whereas a forward expectations specification makes it less likely to have a determinate and learnable REE when the degree of trend following is increasing. We allow for interest rate inertia in the analysis.     

Openness and optimal monetary policy

We show that the composition of international trade has important implications for the optimal volatility of the exchange rate, above and beyond the size of trade flows. Using an analytically tractable small open economy model, we characterize the impact of the trade composition on the policy trade-off and on the role played by the exchange rate in correcting for price misalignments. Contrary to models where openness can be summarized by the degree of home bias, we find that openness can be a poor proxy of the welfare impact of alternative monetary policies. Using input–output data for 25 countries we document substantial differences in the import and non-tradable content of final demand components, and in the role played by imported inputs in domestic production. The estimates are used in a richer small-open-economy DSGE model to quantify the loss from an exchange rate peg relative to the Ramsey policy conditional on the composition of imports. We find that the main determinant of the losses is the share of non-traded goods in final demand.     

Interest rate liberalization and pass-through of monetary policy rate to bank lending rates in China

We examine whether the effectiveness of the monetary policy rate transmission differs before and after interest rate liberalization in China using the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) bound test and an error correction model (ECM). The results show that after liberalization the mark-up is lower, and both the long-run and shortrun interest rate pass-through has become faster and more complete. We attribute our findings to the ongoing reforms of China’s banking system, which has improved the competitiveness of Chinese commercial banks.     

Exchange rate expectations and monetary policy

The adjustment process to a monetary disturbance is studied in a model of perfect capital mobility and flexible exchange rates. Exchange rate expectations are emphasized and used to establish an adjustment process. In the short run, a monetary expansion gives rise to a depreciation in the exchange rate and a reduction in saving due to the terms of trade deterioration. The exchange rate depreciation, in the short run, may be in excess of the long-run depreciation. The trade balance in the short run may worsen. The long-run equilibrium of the analysis conforms to the Mundell-Fleming results that establish the force of monetary policy under flexible rates.