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Working Paper
The timing of monetary policy shocks
A vast empirical literature has documented delayed and persistent effects of monetary policy shocks on output. We show that this finding results from the aggregation of output impulse responses that differ sharply depending on the timing of the shock: When the monetary policy shock takes place in the first two quarters of the year, the response of output is quick, sizable, and dies out at a relatively fast pace. In contrast, output responds very little when the shock takes place in the third or fourth quarter. We propose a potential explanation for the differential responses based on uneven ...
Journal Article
The role of savings and investment in balancing the current account: some empirical evidence from the United States
Current account deficits ultimately reflect a disparity between a country's national savings and investment. As such, the issue of how current account balance is achieved in practice can be viewed in terms of whether it is savings or investment that adjusts to an external deficit. In this article, the author examines empirically how savings and investment have responded to current account imbalances in the United States over the past 40 years. The main finding is that, on average, investment was largely responsible for rebalancing the current account in the long run. The finding that ...
Working Paper
Financial variables and macroeconomic forecast errors
A large set of financial variables has only limited power to predict a latent factor common to the year-ahead forecast errors for real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth, the unemployment rate, and Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation for three sets of professional forecasters: the Federal Reserve?s Greenbook, the Survey of Professional Forecasters (SPF), and the Blue Chip Consensus Forecasts. Even when a financial variable appears to be fairly robust across sample periods in explaining the latent factor, from an economic standpoint its contribution appears modest. Still, several financial ...
Conference Paper
Estimating forward-looking Euler equations with GMM estimators: an optimal-instruments approach
We compare different methods for estimating forwardlooking output and inflation equations and show that weak identification can be an issue in conventional GMM estimation. GMM and maximum likelihood procedures that impose the dynamic constraints implied by the forwardlooking relation on the instruments set are found to be more reliable than conventional GMM. These ?optimal instruments? procedures provide a robust alternative to estimating dynamic macroeconomic relations, and suggest only a limited role for expectational terms.
Working Paper
Wage setting patterns and monetary policy: international evidence
Systematic differences in the timing of wage setting decisions among industrialized countries provide an ideal framework to study the importance of wage rigidity in the transmission of monetary policy. The Japanese Shunto presents the best-known case of bunching in wage setting decisions: From February to May, most firms set wages that remain in place until the following year; wage rigidity, thus, is relatively higher immediately after the Shunto. Similarly, in the United States, a large fraction of firms adjust wages in the last quarter of the calendar year. In contrast, wage agreements in ...
Journal Article
Switzerland's approach to monetary policy
Monetary policy as conducted by the Swiss National Bank is aimed at maintaining price stability in the medium term. Between 1980 and 1999, the Bank used the seasonally adjusted monetary base as monetary target and as indicator. Given the continually distorted indicator value of the monetary base after 1996, the Bank fundamentally reviewed its modus operandi. As of the beginning of 2000, the Swiss National Bank (SNB) considers price stability to be achieved with an annual inflation (CPI) rate of less than 2 percent. The Bank bases its monetary policy decisions on a medium-term (three-year) ...
Journal Article
Japan's approach to monetary policy
The goal of monetary policy as conducted by the Bank of Japan is to contribute to the sound development of the national economy through the pursuit of price stability. The objective of price stability, however, is not precisely defined as it has been for other central banks. Following the implementation of the new Bank of Japan Law in 1998, the monetary policy framework is characterized by central bank independence, the primacy of the price stability objective, instrument independence, and policy decisions made by a monetary policy committee with regular meetings and published minutes. At its ...
Journal Article
Why the interest in reforming the International Monetary System?
The recent spate of severe financial crises has provoked an interest in international monetary reform not seen since the breakdown of the fixed exchange rate system 30 years ago. Indeed, the crises have forced both academic economists and policymakers to question some of their most basic assumptions about the appropriate design of the international monetary system. This article was the introductory paper at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston's conference on "Rethinking the International Monetary System," held in June 1999. The article reviews recent changes in the economic environment that ...
Journal Article
Rethinking the International Monetary System: an overview
When the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston chose "Rethinking the International Monetary System" as the topic for its 43rd Economic Conference, it was clear that the worst international financial crisis in decades had caused tremors within the economics profession and the policymaking establishment. The miracle countries of Asia had suffered sharp currency devaluation and deep economic downturns, the turmoil had spilled over into Russia and Latin America, and a severe liquidity crisis had briefly threatened banking systems in the advanced countries. Not surprisingly, then, the events of the ...
Working Paper
Inflation dynamics when inflation is near zero
This paper discusses the likely evolution of U.S. inflation in the near and medium term on the basis of (1) past U.S. experience with very low levels of inflation, (2) the most recent Japanese experience with deflation, and (3) recent U.S. micro evidence on downward nominal wage rigidity. Our findings question the view that stable long-run inflation expectations and downward nominal wage rigidity will provide sufficient support to prices such that deflation can be avoided. We show that an inflation model fitted on Japanese data over the past 20 years, which accounts for both short- and ...