Niet beschikbaar in het Nederlands
Massimo Rostagno
- 1 June 2021
- WORKING PAPER SERIES - No. 2564Details
- Abstract
- This paper provides new empirical evidence that bears on the efficacy of unconventional monetary policies when the main policy rate is negative. When a negative interest rate policy (NIRP) is deployed in concert with rate forward guidance (FG) and quantitative easing (QE), the identification of the impacts of these unconventional instruments of monetary policy is challenging. We propose a novel identification approach that seeks to overcome this challenge by combining a dense, controlled event study with forward curve counterfactuals that we construct using predictive rate densities derived from rate options. We find that NIRP has exerted a sizeable influence on the term structure of interest rates throughout maturities while, on net, the impact of rate FG has been more muted. QE explains the lion’s share of yield effects, particularly over the back end of the yield curve. We then feed these rate counterfactuals into a large-scale Bayesian VAR and generate alternative histories for the euro area macro-economy that one would likely have observed between 2013 and 2020 in no-NIRP (with or without FG) and in no-QE regimes. According to this conditional forecasting exercise, in 2019 GDP growth and annual inflation would have been 1.1 p.p. and 0.75 p.p. lower, respectively, and the unemployment rate 1.1 p.p. higher than they actually were, had the ECB abstained from using NIRP, FG and QE over the previous six years or so.
- JEL Code
- C32 : Mathematical and Quantitative Methods→Multiple or Simultaneous Equation Models, Multiple Variables→Time-Series Models, Dynamic Quantile Regressions, Dynamic Treatment Effect Models, Diffusion Processes
C54 : Mathematical and Quantitative Methods→Econometric Modeling→Quantitative Policy Modeling
C58 : Mathematical and Quantitative Methods→Econometric Modeling→Financial Econometrics
E50 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit→General
E51 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit→Money Supply, Credit, Money Multipliers
E52 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit→Monetary Policy
- 19 December 2019
- WORKING PAPER SERIES - No. 2346Details
- Abstract
- The 20th anniversary of Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) offers an opportunity to look back on the ECB’s record and learn lessons that can improve the conduct of policy in the future. This paper charts the way the ECB has defined, interpreted and applied its monetary policy framework – its strategy – over the years from its inception, in search of evidence and lessons that can inform those reflections. Our “Tale of Two Decades” is largely a tale of “two regimes”: one – stretching slightly beyond the ECB’s mid-point – marked by decent growth in real incomes and a distribution of shocks to inflation almost universally to the upside; and the second – starting well into the post-Lehman period – characterised by endemic instability and crisis, with the distribution of shocks eventually switching from inflationary to continuously disinflationary. We show how the most defining element of the ECB’s monetary policy framework, its characteristic definition of price stability with a hard 2% ceiling, functioned as a key shock-absorber in the relatively high-inflation years prior to the crisis, but offered a softer defence in the face of the disinflationary forces that hit the euro area in its aftermath. The imperative to halt persistent disinflation in the post-crisis era therefore called for a radical, unprecedented policy response, comprising negative policy rates, enhanced forms of forward guidance, a large asset purchase programme and targeted long-term loans to banks. We study the multidimensional interactions among these four instruments and quantify their impact on inflation and economic activity.
- JEL Code
- E50 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit→General
E51 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit→Money Supply, Credit, Money Multipliers
E52 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit→Monetary Policy
- 2 May 2011
- WORKING PAPER SERIES - No. 1336Details
- Abstract
- We evaluate the ECB's monetary policy strategy against the underlying economic structure of the euro area economy, in normal times and in times of severe financial dislocations. We show that in the years preceding the financial crisis that started in 2007 the strategy was successful at ensuring macroeconomic stability and steady growth despite shocks to the supply side and to the transmission mechanism which complicated the policy process. Emphasis on monetary indicators in the ECB's monetary policy strategy
- JEL Code
- E31 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles→Price Level, Inflation, Deflation
E44 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Money and Interest Rates→Financial Markets and the Macroeconomy
E51 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit→Money Supply, Credit, Money Multipliers
E58 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit→Central Banks and Their Policies
- 20 May 2010
- WORKING PAPER SERIES - No. 1192Details
- Abstract
- We augment a standard monetary DSGE model to include a banking sector and financial markets. We fit the model to Euro Area and US data. We find that agency problems in financial contracts, liquidity constraints facing banks and shocks that alter the perception of market risk and hit financial intermediation — ‘financial factors’ in short — are prime determinants of economic fluctuations. They have been critical triggers and propagators in the recent financial crisis. Financial intermediation turns an otherwise diversifiable source of idiosyncratic economic uncertainty, the ‘risk shock’, into a systemic force.
- JEL Code
- E3 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles
E22 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Consumption, Saving, Production, Investment, Labor Markets, and Informal Economy→Capital, Investment, Capacity
E44 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Money and Interest Rates→Financial Markets and the Macroeconomy
E51 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit→Money Supply, Credit, Money Multipliers
E52 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit→Monetary Policy
E58 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit→Central Banks and Their Policies
C11 : Mathematical and Quantitative Methods→Econometric and Statistical Methods and Methodology: General→Bayesian Analysis: General
G1 : Financial Economics→General Financial Markets
G21 : Financial Economics→Financial Institutions and Services→Banks, Depository Institutions, Micro Finance Institutions, Mortgages
G3 : Financial Economics→Corporate Finance and Governance
- 31 October 2008
- WORKING PAPER SERIES - No. 955Details
- Abstract
- We explore the dynamic effects of news about a future technology improvement which turns out ex post to be overoptimistic. We find that it is difficult to generate a boom-bust cycle (a period in which stock prices, consumption, investment and employment all rise and then crash) in response to such a news shock, in a standard real business cycle model. However, a monetized version of the model which stresses sticky wages and a Taylorrule based monetary policy naturally generates a welfare-reducing boom-bust cycle in response to a news shock. We explore the possibility that integrating credit growth into monetary policy may result in improved performance. We discuss the robustness of our analysis to alternative specifications of the labor market, in which wage-setting frictions do not distort on going firm/worker relations.
- JEL Code
- C11 : Mathematical and Quantitative Methods→Econometric and Statistical Methods and Methodology: General→Bayesian Analysis: General
C51 : Mathematical and Quantitative Methods→Econometric Modeling→Model Construction and Estimation
E5 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit
E13 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→General Aggregative Models→Neoclassical
E32 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles→Business Fluctuations, Cycles
- 11 July 2007
- WORKING PAPER SERIES - No. 774Details
- Abstract
- The US Federal Reserve cut interest rates more vigorously in the recent recession than the European Central Bank did. By comparison with the Fed, the ECB followed a more measured course of action. We use an estimated dynamic general equilibrium model with financial frictions to show that comparisons based on such simple metrics as the variance of policy rates are misleading. We find that - because there is greater inertia in the ECB's policy rule - the ECB's policy actions actually had a greater stabilizing effect than did those of the Fed. As a consequence, a potentially severe recession turned out to be only a slowdown, and inflation never departed from levels consistent with the ECB's quantitative definition of price stability. Other factors that account for the different economic outcomes in the Euro Area and US include differences in shocks and differences in the degree of wage and price flexibility.
- JEL Code
- C51 : Mathematical and Quantitative Methods→Econometric Modeling→Model Construction and Estimation
E52 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit→Monetary Policy
E58 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit→Central Banks and Their Policies
- 26 March 2004
- WORKING PAPER SERIES - No. 326Details
- Abstract
- We evaluate the Friedman-Schwartz hypothesis that a more accommodative monetary policy could have greatly reduced the severity of the Great Depression. To do this, we first estimate a dynamic, general equilibrium model using data from the 1920s and 1930s. Although the model includes eight shocks, the story it tells about the Great Depression turns out to be a simple and familiar one. The contraction phase was primarily a consequence of a shock that induced a shift away from privately intermediated liabilities, such as demand deposits and liabilities that resemble equity, and towards currency. The slowness of the recovery from the Depression was due to a shock that increased the market power of workers. We identify a monetary base rule which responds only to the money demand shocks in the model. We solve the model with this counterfactual monetary policy rule. We then simulate the dynamic response of this model to all the estimated shocks. Based on the model analysis, we conclude that if the counterfactual policy rule had been in place in the 1930s, the Great Depression would have been relatively mild.
- JEL Code
- E31 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles→Price Level, Inflation, Deflation
E40 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Money and Interest Rates→General
E51 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit→Money Supply, Credit, Money Multipliers
E52 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit→Monetary Policy
E58 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit→Central Banks and Their Policies
N12 : Economic History→Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics, Industrial Structure, Growth, Fluctuations→U.S., Canada: 1913?
- 1 October 2002
- WORKING PAPER SERIES - No. 189Details
- Abstract
- This paper presents an optimal fiscal policy response to address the basic trade-off between the automatic stabilisation properties of budgets and the long run fiscal positions. The framework is an overlapping generations model la Weil (1989), extended to account for stochastic endowments and borrowing constrained households. A benign government chooses over the optimal degree of responsiveness of net taxes to individual incomes, an optimal measure of long-run public debt, or both, in order to smooth households' consumption across states of nature. In the presence of a deficit constraint for the government, the results unambiguously point to the desire for lower debt levels than those currently prevailing in order to enable a more effective hedging of personal income uncertainty by means of more active fiscal stabilisers. Citizens in economies exhibiting more pronounced cycles will favour less automatic stabilisation combined with a more aggressive policy of debt reduction.
- JEL Code
- H31 : Public Economics→Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents→Household
H63 : Public Economics→National Budget, Deficit, and Debt→Debt, Debt Management, Sovereign Debt
E63 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook→Comparative or Joint Analysis of Fiscal and Monetary Policy, Stabilization, Treasury Policy