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Working Paper
A Unified Measure of Fed Monetary Policy Shocks
Identification of Fed monetary policy shocks is complex, in light of the distinct policymaking regimes before, during, and after the ZLB period of December 2008 to December 2015. We develop a heteroscedasticity-based partial least squares approach, combined with Fama-MacBeth style cross-section regressions, to identify a US monetary policy shock series that usefully bridges periods of conventional and unconventional policymaking and is effectively devoid of the central bank information effect. Our series has moderately high correlation with the shocks identified by Nakamura and Steinsson ...
Working Paper
Looking Beyond the Fed: Do Central Banks Cause Information Effects?
The importance of central bank information effects is the subject of an ongoing debate. Most work in this area focuses on the limited number of monetary policy events at the Federal Reserve. I assess the degree to which nine other central banks cause information effects. This analysis yields a much larger panel of primarily novel events. Following a surprise monetary tightening, economic forecasts improve in line with information effects. However, I find this outcome is driven by the predictability of monetary policy surprises and not information effects. My results support the view that ...