Working Paper

When is monetary policy effective?

Abstract: In this paper, we investigate a number of issues that have not been completely addressed in previous studies regarding the possible asymmetric effects of monetary policy. Overall, we interpret our results as weak evidence in favor of sticky-wage and sticky-price theories and strong evidence against credit-rationing theories. First, we find that models that allow for asymmetries with respect to contractionary/expansionary monetary policy fit the data better than models that allow for asymmetries associated with the state of the business cycle. Second, we find that contractionary monetary policy shocks have a much larger effect on output than expansionary policy shocks, although this result is somewhat sensitive to the econometric specification. Finally, we find that monetary policy shocks that occur during economic expansions appear to have about the same effect as shocks that occur during recessions; this result is robust to various econometric specifications.

Keywords: Monetary policy; Monetary theory;

Bibliographic Information

Provider: Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.)

Part of Series: International Finance Discussion Papers

Publication Date: 1995

Number: 520