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Journal Article
Policymakers Have Options for Additional Accommodation: Forward Guidance and Yield Curve Control
With the federal funds rate near zero, policymakers are evaluating options for providing additional monetary policy accommodation, including a tool known as yield curve control. We find that despite low nominal Treasury yields, some scope for additional accommodation remains should policymakers deem it appropriate. However, we argue that forward guidance about future interest rates could deliver much, though not all, of the accommodation of yield curve control.
Report
The Narrow Channel of Quantitative Easing: Evidence from YCC Down Under
We study the recent Australian experience with yield curve control (YCC) of government bonds as perhaps the best evidence of how this policy might work in other developed economies. We interpret the evidence with a simple model in which YCC affects prices of both government and other bonds via “broad” transmission channels, but only government bond prices through “narrow” liquidity channels. YCC seemingly worked well in 2020 while the market expected short rates to stay at zero for long. But as the global recovery and inflation gained momentum in 2021, liftoff expectations moved up, ...
Working Paper
Quantifying Forward Guidance and Yield Curve Control
This study evaluates the effectiveness of Japan's unconventional monetary policies over the past quarter century within a unified term structure framework. It specifically examines the impact of the Bank of Japan's (BOJ) outcome-based forward guidance and yield curve control (YCC) and incorporates other policy types into the framework. The findings show that the BOJ’s forward guidance and YCC have both had a significant impact on the shadow rate. Forward guidance accounted for most of the policy impact in the early stages of unconventional monetary policies and remained influential ...
Working Paper
Issues in the Use of the Balance Sheet Tool
This paper considers various ways of using balance sheet policy (BSP) to provide monetary policy stimulus, including the BSPs put in place by the Federal Reserve in the wake of the Global Financial Crisis, the choice between fixed-size and flow-based asset purchase programs, policies targeting interest rate levels rather than the quantity of asset purchases, and programs aimed at increasing more direct lending to households and firms. For each of these BSP options, we evaluate benefits and costs. We conclude by observing that BSPs’ relative effectiveness and thus optimal configuration will ...
Discussion Paper
Japan’s Experience with Yield Curve Control
In September 2016, the Bank of Japan (BoJ) changed its policy framework to target the yield on ten-year government bonds at “around zero percent,” close to the prevailing rate at the time. The new framework was announced as a modification of the Bank's earlier policy of rapid monetary base expansion via large-scale asset purchases—a policy that market participants increasingly regarded as unsustainable. While the BoJ announced that the rapid pace of government bond purchases would not change, it turned out that the yield target approach allowed for a dramatic scaling back in purchases. ...
What Is Yield Curve Control?
Australia and Japan have recent experience in controlling the yield curve as a tool to conduct monetary policy. The U.S. did so in the 1940s and early 1950s.