Davide Debortoli, Jinill Kim, J. Lindé, Ricardo Nunes
{"title":"Designing a Simple Loss Function for Central Banks: Does a Dual Mandate Make Sense?","authors":"Davide Debortoli, Jinill Kim, J. Lindé, Ricardo Nunes","doi":"10.1111/ECOJ.12630","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/ECOJ.12630","url":null,"abstract":"Yes, a dual mandate makes a lot of sense. This article studies how to design simple loss functions for central banks, as parsimonious approximations to social welfare. We show, both analytically and quantitatively, that simple loss functions should feature a high weight on measures of economic activity, sometimes even larger than the weight on inflation. Two main factors drive our result. First, stabilising economic activity also stabilises other welfare-relevant variables. Second, the estimated model features mitigated inflation distortions due to a low elasticity of substitution between monopolistic goods and a low interest rate sensitivity of demand. The result holds up in the presence of measurement errors, with large shocks that generate a trade-off between stabilising inflation and resource utilisation, and also when imposing a moderate degree of interest rate volatility.","PeriodicalId":111923,"journal":{"name":"ERN: Monetary Policy (Topic)","volume":"3 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127603436","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Monetary Policy Decisions in Selected Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries Economies: Does Taylor's Principle Matter?","authors":"M. Akinkunmi","doi":"10.1111/opec.12097","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/opec.12097","url":null,"abstract":"Many OPEC countries heavily rely on the hydrocarbon sector as the lifeblood of their economies. The uncertainty of crude oil price environment makes them vulnerable to external shocks. Therefore, knowledge about drivers of economic policies especially monetary policy designed to accommodate shocks calls for empirical research with the recent global oil environment. This study examines the drivers of monetary policy rate in selected OPEC economies and tests whether these factors follow Taylor's rule using monthly time series data from 1990 to 2015. Its finding reveals that inflation gap and output gap are effective in influencing policy rate in Indonesia, whereas only inflation gap influences the policy rate in Nigeria. In addition, the level of policy rate in Saudi Arabia and Venezuela is determined by the level of output gap in the baseline Taylor model. The outcome of the augmented Taylor model supports the smoothing behaviour of the monetary authorities in the economies. In conclusion, none of these economies follow Taylor's principle in their monetary policy decisions.","PeriodicalId":111923,"journal":{"name":"ERN: Monetary Policy (Topic)","volume":"27 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126566963","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Why Have Interest Rates Fallen Far Below the Return on Capital","authors":"M. Marx, Benoît Mojon, F. Velde","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2983681","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2983681","url":null,"abstract":"Risk-free rates have been falling since the 1980s. The return on capital, defined here as the profits over the stock of capital, has not. We analyze these trends in a calibrated OLG model designed to encompass many of the \"usual suspects\" cited in the debate on secular stagnation. Declining labor force and productivity growth imply a limited decline in real interest rates and deleveraging cannot account for the joint decline in the risk free rate and increase in the risk premium. If we allow for a change in the (perceived) risk to productivity growth to fit the data, we find that the decline in the risk-free rate requires an increase in the borrowing capacity of the indebted agents in the model, consistent with the increase in the sum of public and private debt since the crisis but at odds with a deleveraging-based explanation put forth in Eggertsson and Krugman (2012).","PeriodicalId":111923,"journal":{"name":"ERN: Monetary Policy (Topic)","volume":"41 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126359372","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Impact of Monetary Incentives on Employee’s Motivation: Shinas College of Technology, Oman - A Case Study","authors":"Fatma Yousuf Al-Belushi, Firdouse R Khan","doi":"10.18510/IJMIER.2017.311","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18510/IJMIER.2017.311","url":null,"abstract":"PURPOSE The objective of the study is to investigate the impact of monetary incentives on the Shinas College of Technology employees’ motivation; to critically investigate the importance and the value of monetary incentives for the employees and also to critically examine which monetary incentive best suits and motivates the employees of Shinas College of Technology. METHODOLOGY The study included samples of 130 employees from all the academic and non-academic staff of the college collected through a well-defined questionnaire. The data collection was done on a simple random sampling basis. FINDINGS The study reveals that the employees of Shinas College of Technology are motivated by salary and on duty allowance rather than the other monetary incentives/benefits. PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS The study demonstrates that the monetary incentives have a direct impact on employees’ motivation and the attractive financial incentive will boost most of them to work hard. SOCIAL IMPLICATIONS The management of the selected college of study needs to identify the right kind of monetary incentive to their staff so that the employees will be highly motivated to put their best effort in completing their jobs which might, in turn, increase their loyalty towards the organization and their job satisfaction. ORIGINALITY/VALUE No study have examined the impact of monetary incentives and the motivational factors of the employees ever before, and it is a first-hand study of its kind. RESEARCH LIMITATIONS/IMPLICATIONS The study was restricted to the employees of the Shinaz College of Technology, Shinaz, Oman. The study could be extended to know the insight of the employees of similar institutions in Oman.","PeriodicalId":111923,"journal":{"name":"ERN: Monetary Policy (Topic)","volume":"16 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-04-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127788435","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Auction-Based Liquidity of Last Resort","authors":"Eric Moore","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2801138","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2801138","url":null,"abstract":"Using a regression discontinuity design, I evaluate whether the nature of emergency liquidity provision matters for credit supply in the early stages of a financial crisis. Comparing marginal winners and losers in the Federal Reserve's emergency liquidity auctions, I exploit a unique feature of the Term Auction Facility to isolate the impact of billion dollar, short-term loans during the financial crisis. I show that the Term Auction Facility increased bank loan commitment growth by approximately 10-15 percentage points, an effect that arises despite banks? ability to borrow at the discount window on similar terms should they fail to obtain funding through the Term Auction Facility. I find some support for a stigma-based explanation: this liquidity matters in part because it provides funds that banks would otherwise not have borrowed at the discount window. This result suggests that the non-pecuniary cost of borrowing from the Federal Reserve likely played an important role in exacerbating the lending decline at the onset of the global financial crisis. Consistent with this interpretation, I also show that banks that were highly exposed to real estate provided more credit throughout the crisis when they had the ability to borrow relatively anonymously at the Federal Reserve.","PeriodicalId":111923,"journal":{"name":"ERN: Monetary Policy (Topic)","volume":"24 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-04-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114062134","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Relief Rallies after FOMC Announcements as a Resolution of Uncertainty","authors":"Chengyan Gu, A. Kurov, M. Wolfe","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2810262","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2810262","url":null,"abstract":"We find substantial positive average stock returns after FOMC announcements accompanied by the release of the Summary of Economic Projections (SEP) and press conference by the Fed Chair. A simple trading strategy of buying index futures contracts five minutes before the announcement and closing the position 55 minutes after the release would have generated an annualized Sharpe ratio of 2.10. We show that the market uncertainty, measured by the VIX index, declines significantly after FOMC meetings followed by SEP releases. After controlling for changes in the VIX, the positive post-announcement returns disappear, suggesting that these returns are related to the resolution of uncertainty after the announcement.","PeriodicalId":111923,"journal":{"name":"ERN: Monetary Policy (Topic)","volume":"46 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-03-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132858896","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Uncertainty and Monetary Policy in the US: A Journey into Non-Linear Territory","authors":"Giovanni Pellegrino","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2910178","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2910178","url":null,"abstract":"This paper estimates a non-linear Interacted VAR model to assess whether the real effects of monetary policy shocks are milder during times of high uncertainty. In a novel way, uncertainty, i.e., the conditioning indicator discriminating “high” and “low” uncertainty states, is modeled endogenously in the VAR and is found to reduce after an expansionary shock. Generalized Impulse Response Functions a la Koop, Pesaran and Potter (1996) suggest that monetary policy shocks are significantly less powerful during uncertain times, with the peak reactions of a battery of real variables being about two-thirds milder than those during tranquil times. Among the theoretical explanations proposed by the literature, real option effects and precautionary savings appear the ones supported by our results.","PeriodicalId":111923,"journal":{"name":"ERN: Monetary Policy (Topic)","volume":"225 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121105746","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Watering a Lemon Tree: Heterogeneous Risk Taking and Monetary Policy Transmission","authors":"Dong Beom Choi, T. Eisenbach, Tanju Yorulmazer","doi":"10.2139/SSRN.2594076","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/SSRN.2594076","url":null,"abstract":"We build a general equilibrium model with financial frictions that impede monetary policy transmission. Agents with heterogeneous productivity can increase investment by levering up, which increases liquidity risk. In equilibrium, productive agents choose higher leverage, which limits their responsiveness to interest rate changes. A reduction in the interest rate then leads to a deterioration in aggregate investment quality, which decreases liquidation values. This, in turn, reduces loan demand, decreasing the interest rate further and generating a negative spiral. Overall, the allocation of credit is distorted and monetary stimulus can become ineffective even with significant interest rate drops.","PeriodicalId":111923,"journal":{"name":"ERN: Monetary Policy (Topic)","volume":"19 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128678939","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Selva Demiralp, J. Eisenschmidt, Thomas Vlassopoulos
{"title":"Negative Interest Rates, Excess Liquidity and Retail Deposits: Banks’ Reaction to Unconventional Monetary Policy in the Euro Area","authors":"Selva Demiralp, J. Eisenschmidt, Thomas Vlassopoulos","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2941377","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2941377","url":null,"abstract":"In June 2014 the ECB became the first major central bank to lower one of its key policy rates to negative territory. The theoretical and empirical literature is silent on whether banks’ reaction would be different when the policy rate is lowered to negative levels compared to a standard reaction to a rate cut. In this paper we examine this question empirically by using individual bank data for the euro area to identify possible adjustments by banks triggered by the introduction of negative interest rates through three channels: government bond holdings, bank lending, and wholesale funding. We find evidence of a significant adjustment of banks’ balance sheets during the negative interest rate period. Banks tend to extend more loans, hold more non-domestic government bonds and rely less on wholesale funding. The nature and scope of the adjustment depends on banks’ business models.","PeriodicalId":111923,"journal":{"name":"ERN: Monetary Policy (Topic)","volume":"241 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114998976","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Interaction of Labour and Credit Market in Growth Regimes: A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis ","authors":"Ekkehard C. Ernst, S. Mittnik, W. Semmler","doi":"10.1111/ecno.12062","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/ecno.12062","url":null,"abstract":"Earlier research on the links between economic growth and credit market development has abstracted from interactions between labour and financial markets. Moreover, most studies have analysed macro‐finance linkages at the aggregate level, ignoring the decentralized nature of search and matching in labour and credit markets. This paper fills this void and thus allows for a more disaggregate analysis of policy effects. We show that the credit market exacerbates and accentuates the labour market effects, having amplifying effects on output, consumption, employment and welfare. Depending on the strength of the debt‐dynamics, several growth dynamics emerge from this interaction between labour and credit markets with two distinct steady states: a stable growth regime and another one that is vulnerable and unstable. To test the empirical implications of the theoretical model, a multi‐regime VAR (MRVAR) model is fitted to the US output and credit market data. The MRVAR estimation indicates that shocks to credit conditions during a high‐growth period have markedly different effects than during a low growth and recessionary period. Also, there are substantial state‐dependent asymmetries with respect to the sign of shocks to credit conditions, confirming the theoretical predictions.","PeriodicalId":111923,"journal":{"name":"ERN: Monetary Policy (Topic)","volume":"150 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"119784074","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}