Posted Content•
Central Bank Credibility: An Historical and Quantitative Exploration
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors provide empirical measures of central bank credibility and augment these with historical narratives from eleven countries, focusing on measures of inflation expectations, the mean reversion properties of inflation, and indicators of exchange rate risk.
Abstract: In this paper we provide empirical measures of central bank credibility and augment these with historical narratives from eleven countries. To the extent we are able to apply reliable institutional information we can also indirectly assess their role in influencing the credibility of the monetary authority. We focus on measures of inflation expectations, the mean reversion properties of inflation, and indicators of exchange rate risk. In addition we place some emphasis on whether credibility is particularly vulnerable during financial crises, whether its evolution is a function of the type of crisis or its kind (i.e., currency, banking, sovereign debt crises). We find credibility changes over time are frequent and can be significant. Nevertheless, no robust empirical connection between the size of an economic shock (e.g., the Great Depression) and loss of credibility is found. Second, the frequency with which the world economy experiences economic and financial crises, institutional factors (i.e., the quality of governance) plays an important role in preventing a loss of credibility. Third, credibility shocks are dependent on the type of monetary policy regime in place. Finally, credibility is most affected by whether the shock can be associated with policy errors.Institutional subscribers to the NBER working paper series, and residents of developing countries may download this paper without additional charge at www.nber.org.
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TL;DR: In this paper, the authors estimate the exchange rate pass-through to import and consumer prices for a sample of 14 emerging countries over the 1994Q1-2015Q3 period, and show that both the level and volatility of inflation, as well as adopting an inflation target or the transparency of monetary policy decisions clearly reduce ERPT to consumer prices.
45 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the effectiveness of unconventional monetary policies (UMP) is examined and the effects of these policies on the domestic financial market and macroeconomic effects of UMP in the economies where these policies were introduced and their international spillover effects.
Abstract: This study examines the effectiveness of unconventional monetary policies (UMP). It considers whether these policies have been successful and where their effects remain uncertain. We survey both the domestic financial market and macro‐economic effects of UMP in the economies where these policies were introduced and their international spillover effects. The paper considers the impact of a wide range of UMP rather than the effects of specific policy instruments. We also provide a retrospective on the important case of Japan beginning in the late1990s and ask whether the Eurozone's experience with UMP is substantively different given its structure of policymaking. Finally, we ask: if the ‘old normal’ is not in our future, should the ‘new normal’ in monetary policy routinely include what we now refer to as UMP? We conclude that UMP can prevent economic collapse but are not designed to promote stronger long‐term economic growth. Apart from new communication strategies, the use of UMP under normal circumstances does not appear to be a sound monetary policy strategy. Failure to learn this lesson might also enable future policy makers to ask or expect too much from their central banks.
38 citations
Posted Content•
TL;DR: The authors surveys the co-evolution of monetary policy and financial stability for a number of countries across four exchange rate regimes from 1880 to the present and presents historical evidence on the incidence, costs and determinants of financial crises, combined with narratives on some famous financial crises.
Abstract: This paper surveys the co-evolution of monetary policy and financial stability for a number of countries across four exchange rate regimes from 1880 to the present. I present historical evidence on the incidence, costs and determinants of financial crises, combined with narratives on some famous financial crises. I then focus on some empirical historical evidence on the relationship between credit booms, asset price booms and serious financial crises. My exploration suggests that financial crises have many causes, including credit driven asset price booms, which have become more prevalent in recent decades, but that in general financial crises are very heterogeneous and hard to categorize. Two key historical examples stand out in the record of serious financial crises which were linked to credit driven asset price booms and busts: the 1920s and 30s and the Global Financial Crisis of 2007-2008. The question that arises is whether these two 'perfect storms' should be grounds for permanent changes in the monetary and financial environment. I raise some doubts.
33 citations
TL;DR: Singleton as mentioned in this paper discusses the central banking in the twentieth century and discusses the role of central banks in the economic system of the early twenty-first century, focusing on the central bank's role in economic development.
Abstract: Central banking in the twentieth century, by John Singleton, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2010, 350 pp., 1 b/w illus., 3 tables, £60.00 (hardback), ISBN 978-0-521-89909-3 The aim of this ...
31 citations
References
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TL;DR: In this article, the authors examine how recent econometric policy evaluation research on monetary policy rules can be applied in a practical policymaking environment, and the discussion centers around a hypothetical but representative policy rule much like that advocated in recent research.
8,414 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors consider the null hypothesis that a time series has a unit root with possibly nonzero drift against the alternative that the process is "trend-stationary" and show how standard tests of the unit root hypothesis against trend stationary alternatives cannot reject the unit-root hypothesis if the true data generating mechanism is that of stationary fluctuations around a trend function which contains a one-time break.
Abstract: We consider the null hypothesis that a time series has a unit root with possibly nonzero drift against the alternative that the process is «trend-stationary». The interest is that we allow under both the null and alternative hypotheses for the presence for a one-time change in the level or in the slope of the trend function. We show how standard tests of the unit root hypothesis against trend stationary alternatives cannot reject the unit root hypothesis if the true data generating mechanism is that of stationary fluctuations around a trend function which contains a one-time break
7,471 citations
01 Jan 1995
TL;DR: There is wide agreement about the major goals of economic policy: high employment, stable prices, and rapid growth as discussed by the authors.There is less agreement that these goals are mutually compatible or, among those who regard them as incompatible, about the terms at which they can and should be substituted for one another.
Abstract: There is wide agreement about the major goals of economic policy: high employment, stable prices, and rapid growth. There is less agreement that these goals are mutually compatible or, among those who regard them as incompatible, about the terms at which they can and should be substituted for one another. There is least agreement about the role that various instruments of policy can and should play in achieving the several goals.
5,289 citations
Book•
01 Jan 2003
TL;DR: Woodford as discussed by the authors proposes a rule-based approach to monetary policy suitable for a world of instant communications and ever more efficient financial markets, arguing that effective monetary policy requires that central banks construct a conscious and articulate account of what they are doing.
Abstract: With the collapse of the Bretton Woods system, any pretense of a connection of the world's currencies to any real commodity has been abandoned. Yet since the 1980s, most central banks have abandoned money-growth targets as practical guidelines for monetary policy as well. How then can pure "fiat" currencies be managed so as to create confidence in the stability of national units of account? Interest and Prices seeks to provide theoretical foundations for a rule-based approach to monetary policy suitable for a world of instant communications and ever more efficient financial markets. In such a world, effective monetary policy requires that central banks construct a conscious and articulate account of what they are doing. Michael Woodford reexamines the foundations of monetary economics, and shows how interest-rate policy can be used to achieve an inflation target in the absence of either commodity backing or control of a monetary aggregate. The book further shows how the tools of modern macroeconomic theory can be used to design an optimal inflation-targeting regime--one that balances stabilization goals with the pursuit of price stability in a way that is grounded in an explicit welfare analysis, and that takes account of the "New Classical" critique of traditional policy evaluation exercises. It thus argues that rule-based policymaking need not mean adherence to a rigid framework unrelated to stabilization objectives for the sake of credibility, while at the same time showing the advantages of rule-based over purely discretionary policymaking.
4,938 citations
"Central Bank Credibility: An Histor..." refers background in this paper
...Eggertsson, G., and M. Woodford (2003), “The Zero Bound on Interest Rates and Optimal Monetary Policy”, Brookings Papers on Economic Activity 34: 139-211....
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...We begin with the case where interest rates are not smoothed and equation (1.1) augmented by a ‘speed limit’ term (e.g., see Woodford 2003) that corrects for measurement type errors in specification via the addition of an output growth term....
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...Woodford (2003) demonstrates that some history dependence is required to implement policy in a stable fashion....
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...Of course, as Eggertsson and Woodford (2003) point out that: “…the power of the expectations channel of monetary policy is highly sensitive to the precise manner in which expectations are formed…” As a result, there is the possibility that our definition concerns how well central banks have…...
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TL;DR: This Time Is Different as mentioned in this paper presents a comprehensive look at the varieties of financial crises, and guides us through eight astonishing centuries of government defaults, banking panics, and inflationary spikes.
Abstract: Throughout history, rich and poor countries alike have been lending, borrowing, crashing--and recovering--their way through an extraordinary range of financial crises. Each time, the experts have chimed, "this time is different"--claiming that the old rules of valuation no longer apply and that the new situation bears little similarity to past disasters. With this breakthrough study, leading economists Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff definitively prove them wrong. Covering sixty-six countries across five continents, This Time Is Different presents a comprehensive look at the varieties of financial crises, and guides us through eight astonishing centuries of government defaults, banking panics, and inflationary spikes--from medieval currency debasements to today's subprime catastrophe. Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff, leading economists whose work has been influential in the policy debate concerning the current financial crisis, provocatively argue that financial combustions are universal rites of passage for emerging and established market nations. The authors draw important lessons from history to show us how much--or how little--we have learned. Using clear, sharp analysis and comprehensive data, Reinhart and Rogoff document that financial fallouts occur in clusters and strike with surprisingly consistent frequency, duration, and ferocity. They examine the patterns of currency crashes, high and hyperinflation, and government defaults on international and domestic debts--as well as the cycles in housing and equity prices, capital flows, unemployment, and government revenues around these crises. While countries do weather their financial storms, Reinhart and Rogoff prove that short memories make it all too easy for crises to recur. An important book that will affect policy discussions for a long time to come, This Time Is Different exposes centuries of financial missteps.
4,595 citations