Search Results
Working Paper
How much asymmetry is there in bond returns and exchange rates?
We measure asymmetries in the distribution of bond returns and exchange rates and test their statistical significance. Asymmetries are sizable when measured by the coefficient of skewness, a measure that is highly affected by outliers. In contrast, robustly measured asymmetries to outliers often disagree in sign or size, implying that much of the asymmetries measured by the coefficient of skewness can be attributed to extreme observations. Asymmetries in many government bonds returns are only statistically significant according to tests based on the coefficient of skewness.> ; On the ...
Working Paper
Financal frictions and policy cooperation: a case with monopolistic banking and staggered loan contracts
Do financial frictions call for policy cooperation? This paper investigates the implications of simple financial frictions, monopolistic banking together with staggered loan contracts, for monetary policy in open economies in the linear quadratic (LQ) framework. Welfare analysis shows that policy cooperation improves social welfare in the presence of such financial frictions. There also exist long-run gains from cooperation in addition to these by jointly stabilizing inefficient fluctuations over the business cycle, that are usually found in models with price rigidities. The Ramsey optimal ...
Working Paper
Pegging the exchange rate to gain monetary policy credibility
Central banks that lack credibility often tie their exchange rate to that of a more credible partner in order to ?import? credibility. We show in a small open economy model that a central bank that displays ?limited credibility? can deliver significant improvements to a social welfare function that contains no role for exchange rate stabilization by maximizing an objective function that places weight on exchange rate stabilization, and thus the central bank with limited credibility will peg their currency to that of a more credible partner. As the central bank?s credibility improves it will ...
Working Paper
DECLINING TRENDS IN THE REAL INTEREST RATE AND INFLATION: THE ROLE OF AGING
This paper explores a causal link between aging of the labor force and declining trends in the real interest rate and inflation in Japan. We develop a New Keynesian search/matching model that features heterogeneities in age and firm-specific skills. Using the model, we examine the long-run implications of the sharp drop in labor force entry in the 1970s. We show that the changes in the demographic structure induce significant low-frequency movements in per-capita consumption growth and the real interest rate. They also lead to similar movements in the inflation rate when the monetary policy ...
Working Paper
Generational War on Inflation: Optimal Inflation Rates for the Young and the Old
How does a grayer society affect the political decision-making regarding inflation rates? Is deflation preferred as a society ages? In order to answer these questions, we compute the optimal inflation rates for the young and the old respectively, and explore how they change with demographic factors, by using a New Keynesian model with overlapping generations. According to our simulation results, there indeed exists a tension between the young and the old on the optimal inflation rates, with the optimal inflation rates differing between generations. The rates can be significantly different ...
Working Paper
Private news and monetary policy forward guidance or (the expected virtue of ignorance)
How should monetary policy be designed when the central bank has private information about future economic conditions? When private news about shocks to future fundamentals is added to an otherwise standard new Keynesian model, social welfare deteriorates by the central bank?s reaction to or revelation of such news. There exists an expected virtue of ignorance, and secrecy constitutes optimal policy. This result holds when news are about cost-push shocks, or about shocks to the monetary policy objective, or about shocks to the natural rate of interest, and even when the zero lower bound of ...
Working Paper
Aging and the Real Interest Rate in Japan: A Labor Market Channel
This paper explores a causal link between aging of the labor force and declining trends in the real interest rate in Japan. We develop a search/matching model that features heterogeneous workers with respect to their ages and firm-specific skills. Using the model, we examine the long-run implications of the sharp drop in labor force entry in the 1970s. We show that the changes in the demographic structure induce significant low-frequency movements in per capita consumption growth and the real interest rate. The model suggests that aging of the labor force accounts for 40 percent or more of ...
Working Paper
Sustainable international monetary policy cooperation
Working Paper
Policy regime change against chronic deflation? Policy option under a long-term liquidity trap
This paper evaluates the role of the first arrow of Abenomics in guiding public perceptions on monetary policy stance through the management of expectations. In order to end chronic deflation, a policy regime change must be perceived by economic agents. Analysis using the QUICK survey system (QSS) monthly survey data shows that the reaction of monetary policy to inflation has been declining since the mid 2000s, implying intensified forward guidance well before Abenomics. However, Japan seems to have moved closer to a long-term liquidity trap, where even long-term bond yields are constrained ...
Working Paper
Optimal monetary policy in open economies revisited
This paper revisits optimal monetary policy in open economies, in particular, focusing on the noncooperative policy game under local currency pricing in a two-country dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model. We first derive the quadratic loss functions which noncooperative policy makers aim to minimize. Then, we show that noncooperative policy makers face extra trade-offs regarding stabilizing the real marginal costs induced by deviations from the law of one price under local currency pricing. As a result of the increased number of stabilizing objectives, welfare gains from cooperation ...