Abstract Interest-rate smoothing is traditionally attributed to the gradual adjustment of monetary policy to shocks. Rudebusch (2002) argues that smoothing can also arise spuriously if an autocorrelated variable is incorrectly excluded from the estimated reaction function. This paper presents a...

Interest-rate smoothing is traditionally attributed to the gradual adjustment of monetary policy to shocks. Rudebusch (2002) argues that smoothing can also arise spuriously if an autocorrelated variable is incorrectly excluded from the estimated reaction function. This paper presents a model...

This Paper uses annual data spanning 1870 to 1930 on a set of variables correlated with business conditions to construct an index of real economic activity in Switzerland. We extract an estimate of the common component of the data series using principal components analysis and the unobservable...

The term structure is an important transmitter of, and indicator for, monetary policy. This paper studies the Swiss term structure using monthly data from 1989 to 2005. We study the impact of the new monetary policy strategy that the Swiss National Bank (SNB) adopted at the beginning of 2000 on...

Monetary policy is typically formulated with a very short-term interest rate, while longer rates matter in the transmission mechanism. We show that financial market shocks impact less on the macroeconomy if policy is set with a longer rate.