Gradualism, transparency and the improved operational framework: a look at the overnight volatility transmission

This paper proposes a possible way of assessing the effect on interest rate dynamics of changes in the decision-making approach, in the communication strategy and in the operational framework of a central bank. Through a GARCH specification we show that the US and the euro area displayed a limited but significant spillover of volatility from money market to longer-term rates. We then checked the stability of this phenomenon in the most recent period of improved policy-making and found empirical evidence to show that the transmission of overnight volatility along the yield curve had entirely vanished.