The effects of monetary policy on macroeconomic risk

Abstract

Monetary policy expansions significantly reduce macroeconomic downside risk, measured as the difference between the median and the 5th percentile of the industrial production growth forecast distribution. However, the effects are smaller in magnitude than those of credit spread shocks, which we find to be a major driver of fluctuations in downside risk. As a consequence, large policy interventions are required to stabilize risk originating from the financial sector, with undesirable consequences in terms of both price and output stability. These findings are obtained using US data and a novel econometric approach which combines quantile regressions and Structural VAR analysis.