Do Federal Reserve Bank Presidents’ Interest Rate Votes in the FOMC Follow an Electoral Cycle?
Stefan Eichler, Tom Lähner
Applied Economics Letters,
Nr. 9,
2016
Abstract
We find that Federal Reserve Bank presidents’ regional bias in their dissenting interest rate votes in the Federal Open Market Committee follows an electoral cycle. Presidents put more weight on their district’s economic environment during the year prior to their (re-)election relative to nonelection years.
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Exit Expectations and Debt Crises in Currency Unions
Alexander Kriwoluzky, G. J. Müller, M. Wolf
IWH Discussion Papers,
Nr. 18,
2015
Abstract
Membership in a currency union is not irreversible. Exit expectations may emerge during sovereign debt crises, because exit allows countries to reduce their liabilities through a currency redenomination. As market participants anticipate this possibility, sovereign debt crises intensify. We establish this formally within a small open economy model of changing policy regimes. The model permits explosive dynamics of debt and sovereign yields inside currency unions and allows us to distinguish between exit expectations and those of an outright default. By estimating the model on Greek data, we quantify the contribution of exit expectations to the crisis dynamics during 2009 to 2012.
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Monetary Policy under the Microscope: Intra-bank Transmission of Asset Purchase Programs of the ECB
L. Cycon, Michael Koetter
IWH Discussion Papers,
Nr. 9,
2015
Abstract
With a unique loan portfolio maintained by a top-20 universal bank in Germany, this study tests whether unconventional monetary policy by the European Central Bank (ECB) reduced corporate borrowing costs. We decompose corporate lending rates into refinancing costs, as determined by money markets, and markups that the bank is able to charge its customers in regional markets. This decomposition reveals how banks transmit monetary policy within their organizations. To identify policy effects on loan rate components, we exploit the co-existence of eurozone-wide security purchase programs and regional fiscal policies at the district level. ECB purchase programs reduced refinancing costs significantly, even in an economy not specifically targeted for sovereign debt stress relief, but not loan rates themselves. However, asset purchases mitigated those loan price hikes due to additional credit demand stimulated by regional tax policy and enabled the bank to realize larger economic margins.
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The Quantity Theory Revisited: A New Structural Approach
Makram El-Shagi, Sebastian Giesen
Macroeconomic Dynamics,
Nr. 1,
2015
Abstract
We propose a unified identification scheme to identify monetary shocks and track their propagation through the economy. We combine three approaches dealing with the consequences of monetary shocks. First, we adjust a state space version of the P-star type model employing money overhang as the driving force of inflation. Second, we identify the contemporaneous impact of monetary policy shocks by applying a sign restriction identification scheme to the reduced form given by the state space signal equations. Third, to ensure that our results are not distorted by the measurement error exhibited by the official monetary data, we employ the Divisia M4 monetary aggregate provided by the Center for Financial Stability. Our approach overcomes one of the major difficulties of previous models by using a data-driven identification of equilibrium velocity. Thus, we are able to show that a P-star model can fit U.S. data and money did indeed matter in the United States.
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Understanding the Great Recession
Mathias Trabandt, Lawrence J. Christiano, Martin S. Eichenbaum
American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics,
Nr. 1,
2015
Abstract
We argue that the vast bulk of movements in aggregate real economic activity during the Great Recession were due to financial frictions. We reach this conclusion by looking through the lens of an estimated New Keynesian model in which firms face moderate degrees of price rigidities, no nominal rigidities in wages, and a binding zero lower bound constraint on the nominal interest rate. Our model does a good job of accounting for the joint behavior of labor and goods markets, as well as inflation, during the Great Recession. According to the model the observed fall in total factor productivity and the rise in the cost of working capital played critical roles in accounting for the small drop in inflation that occurred during the Great Recession.
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Forecast Dispersion, Dissenting Votes, and Monetary Policy Preferences of FOMC Members: The Role of Individual Career Characteristics and Political Aspects
Stefan Eichler, Tom Lähner
Public Choice,
Nr. 3,
2014
Abstract
Using data from 1992 to 2001, we study the impact of members’ economic forecasts on the probability of casting dissenting votes in the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC). Employing standard ordered probit techniques, we find that higher individual inflation and real GDP growth forecasts (relative to the committee’s median) significantly increase the probability of dissenting in favor of tighter monetary policy, whereas higher individual unemployment rate forecasts significantly decrease it. Using interaction models, we find that FOMC members with longer careers in government, industry, academia, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), or on the staff of the Board of Governors are more focused on output stabilization, while FOMC members with longer careers in the financial sector or on the staffs of regional Federal Reserve Banks are more focused on inflation stabilization. We also find evidence that politics matters, with Republican appointees being much more focused on inflation stabilization than Democratic appointees. Moreover, during the entire Clinton administration ‘natural’ monetary policy preferences of Bank presidents and Board members for inflation and output stabilization were more pronounced than under periods covering the administrations of both George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush, respectively.
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Outperforming IMF Forecasts by the Use of Leading Indicators
Katja Drechsel, Sebastian Giesen, Axel Lindner
IWH Discussion Papers,
Nr. 4,
2014
Abstract
This study analyzes the performance of the IMF World Economic Outlook forecasts for world output and the aggregates of both the advanced economies and the emerging and developing economies. With a focus on the forecast for the current and the next year, we examine whether IMF forecasts can be improved by using leading indicators with monthly updates. Using a real-time dataset for GDP and for the indicators we find that some simple single-indicator forecasts on the basis of data that are available at higher frequency can significantly outperform the IMF forecasts if the publication of the Outlook is only a few months old.
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Estimating Monetary Policy Rules when the Zero Lower Bound on Nominal Interest Rates is Approached
Konstantin Kiesel, M. H. Wolters
Kiel Working Papers, No. 1898,
2014
Abstract
Monetary policy rule parameters estimated with conventional estimation techniques can be severely biased if the estimation sample includes periods of low interest rates. Nominal interest rates cannot be negative, so that censored regression methods like Tobit estimation have to be used to achieve unbiased estimates. We use IV-Tobit regression to estimate monetary policy responses for Japan, the US and the Euro area. The estimation results show that the bias of conventional estimation methods is sizeable for the inflation response parameter, while it is very small for the output gap response and the interest rate smoothing parameter. We demonstrate how IV-Tobit estimation can be used to study how policy responses change when the zero lower bound is approached. Further, we show how one can use the IV-Tobit approach to distinguish between desired policy responses, that the central bank would implement if there was no zero lower bound, and the actual ones and provide estimates of both.
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Reconciling Narrative Monetary Policy Disturbances with Structural VAR Model Shocks?
Martin Kliem, Alexander Kriwoluzky
Economics Letters,
Nr. 2,
2013
Abstract
Structural VAR studies disagree with narrative accounts about the history of monetary policy disturbances. We investigate whether employing the narrative monetary shocks as a proxy variable in a VAR model aligns both shock series. We find that it does not.
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R&D Offshoring and the Productivity Growth of European Regions
Davide Castellani, F. Pieri
CIRCLE Working Papers, No. 20,
Nr. 20,
2013
Abstract
The recent increase in R&D offshoring have raised fears that knowledge and competitiveness in advanced countries may be at risk of 'hollowing out'. At the same time, economic research has stressed that this process is also likely to allow some reverse technology transfer and foster growth at home. This paper addresses this issue by investigating the extent to which R&D offshoring is associated with productivity dynamics of European regions. We find that offshoring regions have higher productivity growth, but this positive effect fades down with the number of investment projects carried out abroad. A large and positive correlation emerge between the extent of R&D offshoring and the home region productivity growth, supporting the idea that carrying out R&D abroad strengthen European competitiveness.
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