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Report
The central-bank balance sheet as an instrument of monetary policy
While many analyses of monetary policy consider only a target for a short-term nominal interest rate, other dimensions of policy have recently been of greater importance: changes in the supply of bank reserves, changes in the assets acquired by central banks, and changes in the interest rate paid on reserves. We first extend a standard New Keynesian model to allow a role for the central bank?s balance sheet in equilibrium determination and then consider the connections between these alternative policy dimensions and traditional interest rate policy. We distinguish between ?quantitative ...
Working Paper
Monetary Regime Change and Business Cycles
This paper proposes a simple method to structurally estimate a model over a period of time containing a regime shift. It then evaluates to which degree it is relevant to explicitly acknowledge the break in the estimation procedure. We apply our method on Swedish data, and estimate a DSGE model explicitly taking into account the monetary regime change in 1993, from exchange rate targeting to inflation targeting. We show that ignoring the break in the estimation leads to spurious estimates of model parameters including parameters in both policy and non-policy economic relations. Accounting for ...
Journal Article
Assessing a Medium-Run Natural Rate of Interest
The natural rate of interest is the inflation-adjusted interest rate consistent with the economy operating at full capacity. Although this rate helps gauge the economy’s health, empirical estimates of it are imprecise and volatile. A medium-run measure that focuses on responsiveness to persistent economic factors while removing short-term volatility may provide more reliable guidance. Analysis suggests that monetary policy using this measure could stabilize inflation and achieve maximum employment more effectively than standard benchmarks. Current medium-run estimates suggest that monetary ...
Journal Article
How stimulatory are large-scale asset purchases?
The Federal Reserve?s large-scale purchases of long-term Treasury securities most likely provided a moderate boost to economic growth and inflation. Importantly, the effects appear to depend greatly on the Fed?s guidance that short-term interest rates would remain low for an extended period. Indeed, estimates from a macroeconomic model suggest that such interest rate forward guidance probably has greater effects than signals about the amount of assets purchased.
Working Paper
Monetary Policy and The Medium-Run Natural Rate
The natural rate of interest is an elusive concept in theory and practice. However, it is essential for central banks’ calibration of the policy rate. Model consistent measures are often too extreme to be used in practice. On the other hand, empirical measures lack the full backing of theory to make them proper benchmarks. This paper proposes a medium-run measure of the natural rate that averages out some excessive fluctuations, while retaining enough connection to economic theory to make it optimal under certain circumstances. The discussion also provides a framework on how to evaluate and ...
Journal Article
How Much Could Negative Rates Have Helped the Recovery?
The Federal Reserve dropped the federal funds rate to near zero during the Great Recession to bolster the U.S. economy. Allowing the federal funds rate to drop below zero may have reduced the depth of the recession and enabled the economy to return more quickly to its full potential. It also may have allowed inflation to rise faster toward the Fed?s 2% target. In other words, negative interest rates may be a useful tool to promote the Fed?s dual mandate.
Working Paper
Credit frictions and optimal monetary policy
We extend the basic (representative-household) New Keynesian [NK] model of the monetary transmission mechanism to allow for a spread between the interest rate available to savers and borrowers, that can vary for either exogenous or endogenous reasons. We find that the mere existence of a positive average spread makes little quantitative difference for the predicted effects of particular policies. Variation in spreads over time is of greater significance, with consequences both for the equilibrium relation between the policy rate and aggregate expenditure and for the relation between real ...
Report
Monetary policy under sudden stops
This paper proposes a model to investigate the effects of monetary policy in an emerging market economy that experiences a sudden stop of capital inflows. The model features credit frictions, debt denominated in foreign currency, imported inputs, and households that have access to the international capital market only indirectly, through their ownership of leveraged firms. The sudden stop is modeled as a change in the perceptions of foreign lenders that brings about an increase in the cost of borrowing. I show that the higher the elasticity of foreign demand, the lower the contraction in ...
Report
Conventional and unconventional monetary policy
We extend a standard New Keynesian model both to incorporate heterogeneity in spending opportunities along with two sources of (potentially time-varying) credit spreads and to allow a role for the central bank's balance sheet in determining equilibrium. We use the model to investigate the implications of imperfect financial intermediation for familiar monetary policy prescriptions and to consider additional dimensions of central bank policy--variations in the size and composition of the central bank's balance sheet as well as payment of interest on reserves--alongside the traditional question ...
Journal Article
Mitigating COVID-19 Effects with Conventional Monetary Policy
The Federal Reserve slashed the federal funds rate in response to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. The full impact of the pandemic on the economy is still uncertain and depends on many factors. Analysis suggests that allowing the federal funds rate to fall fast will help the economy cope with the aftermath of COVID-19. In particular, the limited policy space due to the effective lower bound of the federal funds rate before the pandemic reinforces rather than offsets the need for a rapid funds rate decline.