Measuring interest rates as determined by thrift and productivity

Abstract

This paper investigates the behavior of short-term real and nominal rates of interest by combining consumption-based and production-based models into a single general equilibrium framework. Based on the theoretical nonlinear relationships that link interest rates to both the marginal rates of substitution and transformation in a monetary production economy, we develop an estimation and simulation procedure to generate historical time series of interest rates. We find that the predictions of interest rates based on a general equilibrium theory are partially consistent with US data.