Using granular supervisory data from Germany, we investigate the impact of unconventional monetary policies via central banks' purchase of corporate bonds. While this policy results in a loosening of credit market conditions as intended by policy makers, we document two unintended side effects....

Negative interest rates remain a controversial policy for central banks. We study a novel signalling channel and ask under what conditions negative rates should exist in an optimal policymaker’s toolkit. We prove two necessary conditions for the optimality of negative rates: a time-consistent...

The majority of the New Keynesian DSGE literature assumes that the macroeconomic effects of monetary policy can be satisfactorily described by an interest rate rule without addressing the details of the money supply. We investigate whether this approach remains valid in the presence of inside...

This paper considers the desirability of the observed tendency of central banks to adjust interest rates only gradually in response to changes in economic conditions. It shows, in the context of a simple model of optimizing private-sector behavior, that such inertial policy can be optimal. The...

This paper studies a model in which a low monetary policy rate lowers the cost of capital for entrepreneurs, potentially spurring productive investment. Low interest rates, however, also induce entrepreneurs to lever up so as to increase payouts to equity. Whereas such leveraged payouts...

Does the yield curve's ability to predict future output and recessions differ when interest rates are low, as in the current global environment? In this paper we build on recent econometric work by Shi, Phillips and Hurn that detects changes in the causal impact of the yield curve and relate...

The Reserve Bank of New Zealand guides interest rate expectations of financial markets by projections of future short-term rates that are updated only once a quarter. As a consequence, projections become stale when time evolves and new information enters the market. This paper investigates the...

Central banks (the Fed) and markets (the market) often disagree about the path of interest rates. We develop a model where these different views stem from disagreements between the Fed and the market about future aggregate demand. We then study the implications of these disagreements for...

This paper examines the potential role of the interest on reserves as a main monetary policy tool, in a model of financial intermediation with financial and nominal frictions calibrated to US data (1985-2018). The interest on reserves is shown to affect financial spreads and real economic...

We study whether a central bank should deviate from its objective of price stability to promote financial stability. We tackle this question within a textbook New Keynesian model augmented with capital accumulation and microfounded endogenous financial crises. We compare several interest rate...

The neutral real rate of interest (r*) is a key variable for assessing the tightness of monetary policy. The neutral real interest rate has by all accounts fallen substantially over the past three decades, amid slowing productivity growth, an ageing population, increased inequality and increased...

Could a monetary policy loosening in a low interest rate environment have unintended recessionary effects? Using a non-linear macroeconomic model fitted to the euro area economy, we show that the effectiveness of monetary policy can decline in negative territory until it reaches an endogenous...

It is well known that the Fed can operate the optimal monetary policy if the Fed is able to trace the Natural-Rate-of-Interest (NRI) successfully. In this sense, it has been wondered if there could be a certain way practically available for the Fed to get it done. It is shown that, based on NRI...

We estimate the causal impact of countercyclical interest rates on macroeconomic outcomes in open economies. To identify countercyclical interest rates, we construct a new database of short-term interest rates, principal exports, and international commodity prices for 40 economies from 1870 to...

The research question relates to the quantitative impact of government bond purchases of the European Central Bank on inflation and other economic variables at the zero lower bound. At the core is a standard New Keynesian Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium model with several financial...

After adopting an inflation targeting framework for monetary policy at the turn of the twenty-first century, Banco de la República, the Central Bank of Colombia, started actively using the monetary policy interest rate as its key policy tool. This paper examines the interest rate pass-through...

This paper considers the "Lucas"-critique issue of how the indicator role of auction prices is affected when the central bank attempts to exploit the correlation between auction prices and inflation. This question is examined using a simple macroeconomic model with rational expectations (perfect...

This is a technical appendix to a group of papers being prepared, one of which is "Monetary Policy Rules in a Small Forward-Looking Macro Model." The present paper, the first of several, attempts to quantify the relative advantage of simple, Taylor-style interest rate rules vs. feedback rules...

This paper analyses the mechanics of simple interest rate rules for two models----one with backward and the other with forward looking, rational expectations. The approach is to consider policy when faced with a specific task reducing inflation in a stabilizing manner. The two models are: (i)...

An issue with monetary policy rules to guide inflation is the indeterminacy of the price level. In the context of a traditional backward-looking and a modern forward-looking New-Keynesian Phillips curve, this paper examines the dynamic and steady state properties of interest rate rules anchored...

This paper examines the properties of interest rate rules aimed at controlling aggregate price inflation. Policies are compared in two models having either flexible or sticky inflation The latter is assumed to derive from a traditional, adaptive-expectations augmented Phillips curve. The...

As the US has entered a rate hike cycle, there are growing concerns about the path of the Fed fund’s rate and its implications. Against this backdrop, this article analyzes the direction of US monetary policy and its risks, and explores how it would affect Korea’s financial market,...

We study the dynamics of consumption, the real interest rate, and measures of labor input in Japan over the period from 1985-2014. We identify structural breaks in macroeconomic aggregates during the 1990s and associate them with the zero interest rate policy pursued by the Bank of Japan and the...

This working paper was written by Yin-wong Cheung (University of California, Santa Cruz and University of Hong Kong), Dickson Tam (Hong Kong Institute for Monetary Research) and Matthew S. Yiu (Hong Kong Institute for Monetary Research).One argument for floating the Chinese renminbi (RMB) is to...

Exploiting confidential data on individual German bank balance-sheets, I analyse what characterises a bank that opts to apply negative interest rates to corporate deposits. The results suggest that banks that are highly exposed to the negative interest rate policy (NIRP), i.e. funded by a larger...

Evidence on the effects of negative interest rates on bank lending is inconclusive so far. By applying a difference-in-difference estimation using granular loan level data with a large coverage from Austria, I show, contrary to some previous findings, that the introduction of a negative deposit...

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...

Central banks wish to avoid self-fulfilling fluctuations. Monetary rules with a unit response to real rates achieve this under the weakest possible assumptions about the behaviour of households and firms. They are robust to household heterogeneity, hand-to-mouth consumers, non-rational...

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...

This paper evaluates the effects of forward guidance and large-scale asset purchases (LSAP) when the nominal interest rate reaches the zero lower bound. I investigate the effects of the two policies in a dynamic new Keynesian model with financial frictions adapted from Gertler and Karadi (2011,...

For almost 10 years, several central banks in advanced economies have cut and maintained their key policy rates below zero. Central banks in Denmark, the euro area, Japan, Sweden, and Switzerland had turned to such policies in response to persistently below-target inflation rates and a very low...