Download or read book Monetary Policy Alternatives at the Zero Bound written by Ben S. Bernanke and published by www.bnpublishing.com. This book was released on 2009-03 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The success over the years in reducing inflation and, consequently, the average level of nominal interest rates has increased the likelihood that the nominal policy interest rate may become constrained by the zero lower bound. When that happens, a central bank can no longer stimulate aggregate demand by further interest-rate reductions and must rely on "non-standard" policy alternatives. To assess the potential effectiveness of such policies, we analyze the behavior of selected asset prices over short periods surrounding central bank statements or other types of financial or economic news and estimate "noarbitrage" models of the term structure for the United States and Japan. There is some evidence that central bank communications can help to shape public expectations of future policy actions and that asset purchases in large volume by a central bank would be able to affect the price or yield of the targeted asset.

Download or read book Straining at the Anchor written by Gerardo della Paolera and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2007-12-01 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The "Argentine disappointment"—why Argentina persistently failed to achieve sustained economic stability during the twentieth century—is an issue that has mystified scholars for decades. In Straining the Anchor, Gerardo della Paolera and Alan M. Taylor provide many of the missing links that help explain this important historical episode. Written chronologically, this book follows the various fluctuations of the Argentine economy from its postrevolutionary volatility to a period of unprecedented prosperity to a dramatic decline from which the country has never fully recovered. The authors examine in depth the solutions that Argentina has tried to implement such as the Caja de Conversión, the nation's first currency board which favored a strict gold-standard monetary regime, the forerunner of the convertibility plan the nation has recently adopted. With many countries now using—or seriously contemplating—monetary arrangements similar to Argentina's, this important and persuasive study maps out one of history's most interesting monetary experiments to show what works and what doesn't.

Download or read book Man Out written by Andrew L. Yarrow and published by Brookings Institution Press. This book was released on 2018-09-11 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The story of men who are hurting—and hurting America by their absence Man Out describes the millions of men on the sidelines of life in the United States. Many of them have been pushed out of the mainstream because of an economy and society where the odds are stacked against them; others have chosen to be on the outskirts of twenty-first-century America. These men are disconnected from work, personal relationships, family and children, and civic and community life. They may be angry at government, employers, women, and "the system" in general—and millions of them have done time in prison and have cast aside many social norms. Sadly, too many of these men are unsure what it means to be a man in contemporary society. Wives or partners reject them; children are estranged from them; and family, friends, and neighbors are embarrassed by them. Many have disappeared into a netherworld of drugs, alcohol, poor health, loneliness, misogyny, economic insecurity, online gaming, pornography, other off-the-grid corners of the internet, and a fantasy world of starting their own business or even writing the Great American novel. Most of the men described in this book are poorly educated, with low incomes and often with very few prospects for rewarding employment. They are also disproportionately found among millennials, those over 50, and African American men. Increasingly, however, these lost men are discovered even in tony suburbs and throughout the nation. It is a myth that men on the outer corners of society are only lower-middle-class white men dislocated by technology and globalization. Unlike those who primarily blame an unjust economy, government policies, or a culture sanctioning "laziness," Man Out explores the complex interplay between economics and culture. It rejects the politically charged dichotomy of seeing such men as either victims or culprits. These men are hurting, and in turn they are hurting families and hurting America. It is essential to address their problems. Man Out draws on a wide range of data and existing research as well as interviews with several hundred men, women, and a wide variety of economists and other social scientists, social service providers and physicians, and with employers, through a national online survey and in-depth fieldwork in several communities.

Download or read book Enabling Deep Negative Rates to Fight Recessions A Guide written by Ruchir Agarwal and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2019-04-29 with total page 89 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The experience of the Great Recession and its aftermath revealed that a lower bound on interest rates can be a serious obstacle for fighting recessions. However, the zero lower bound is not a law of nature; it is a policy choice. The central message of this paper is that with readily available tools a central bank can enable deep negative rates whenever needed—thus maintaining the power of monetary policy in the future to end recessions within a short time. This paper demonstrates that a subset of these tools can have a big effect in enabling deep negative rates with administratively small actions on the part of the central bank. To that end, we (i) survey approaches to enable deep negative rates discussed in the literature and present new approaches; (ii) establish how a subset of these approaches allows enabling negative rates while remaining at a minimum distance from the current paper currency policy and minimizing the political costs; (iii) discuss why standard transmission mechanisms from interest rates to aggregate demand are likely to remain unchanged in deep negative rate territory; and (iv) present communication tools that central banks can use both now and in the event to facilitate broader political acceptance of negative interest rate policy at the onset of the next serious recession.

Download or read book International Macroeconomics written by Stephanie Schmitt-Grohé and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2022-09-06 with total page 482 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An essential introduction to one of the most timely and important subjects in economics International Macroeconomics presents a rigorous and theoretically elegant treatment of real-world international macroeconomic problems, incorporating the latest economic research while maintaining a microfounded, optimizing, and dynamic general equilibrium approach. This one-of-a-kind textbook introduces a basic model and applies it to fundamental questions in international economics, including the determinants of the current account in small and large economies, processes of adjustment to shocks, the determinants of the real exchange rate, the role of fixed and flexible exchange rates in models with nominal rigidities, and interactions between monetary and fiscal policy. The book confronts theoretical predictions using actual data, highlighting both the power and limits of given theories and encouraging critical thinking. Provides a rigorous and elegant treatment of fundamental questions in international macroeconomicsBrings undergraduate and master’s instruction in line with modern economic researchFollows a microfounded, optimizing, and dynamic general equilibrium approachAddresses fundamental questions in international economics, such as the role of capital controls in the presence of financial frictions and balance-of-payments crisesUses real-world data to test the predictions of theoretical modelsFeatures a wealth of exercises at the end of each chapter that challenge students to hone their theoretical skills and scrutinize the empirical relevance of modelsAccompanied by a website with lecture slides for every chapter

Download or read book Introduction to Central Banking written by Ulrich Bindseil and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2021-05-18 with total page 128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This open access book gives a concise introduction to the practical implementation of monetary policy by modern central banks. It describes the conventional instruments used in advanced economies and the unconventional instruments that have been widely adopted since the financial crisis of 2007–2008. Illuminating the role of central banks in ensuring financial stability and as last resort lenders, it also offers an overview of the international monetary framework. A flow-of-funds framework is used throughout to capture this essential dimension in a consistent and unifying manner, providing a unique and accessible resource on central banking and monetary policy, and its integration with financial stability. Addressed to professionals as well as bachelors and masters students of economics, this book is suitable for a course on economic policy. Useful prerequisites include at least a general idea of the economic institutions of an economy, and knowledge of macroeconomics and monetary economics, but readers need not be familiar with any specific macroeconomic models.

Download or read book Negative Monetary Policy Rates and Portfolio Rebalancing Evidence from Credit Register Data written by Margherita Bottero and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2019-02-28 with total page 59 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We study negative interest rate policy (NIRP) exploiting ECB's NIRP introduction and administrative data from Italy, severely hit by the Eurozone crisis. NIRP has expansionary effects on credit supply-- -and hence the real economy---through a portfolio rebalancing channel. NIRP affects banks with higher ex-ante net short-term interbank positions or, more broadly, more liquid balance-sheets, not with higher retail deposits. NIRP-affected banks rebalance their portfolios from liquid assets to credit—especially to riskier and smaller firms—and cut loan rates, inducing sizable real effects. By shifting the entire yield curve downwards, NIRP differs from rate cuts just above the ZLB.

Download or read book Money Theory and Practice written by Jin Cao and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2019-12-07 with total page 412 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This textbook provides an introduction to modern monetary economics for advanced undergraduates, highlighting the lessons learned from the recent financial crisis. The book presents both the core New Keynesian model and recent advances, taking into account financial frictions, and discusses recent research on an intuitive level based on simple static and two-period models, but also prepares readers for an extension to a truly dynamic analysis. Further, it offers a systematic perspective on monetary policy, covering a wide range of models to help readers gain a better understanding of controversial issues. Part I examines the long-run perspective, addressing classical monetary policy issues such as determination of the price level and interaction between monetary and fiscal policy. Part II introduces the core New Keynesian model, characterizing optimal monetary policy to stabilize short-term shocks. It discusses rules vs. discretion and the challenges arising from control errors, imperfect information and robustness issues. It also analyzes optimal control in the presence of an effective lower bound. Part III focuses on modelling financial frictions. It identifies the transmission mechanisms of monetary policy via banking and introduces models with incomplete markets, principal-agent problems, maturity mismatch and leverage cycles, to show why investors’ and intermediaries’ own stakes play a key role in lending with pro-cyclical features. In addition, it presents a tractable model for handling liquidity management and demonstrates that the need to sell assets in crisis amplifies the volatility of the real economy. Lastly, the book discusses the relation between monetary policy and financial stability, addressing systemic risk and the role of macro-prudential regulation.

Download or read book Breaking Through the Zero Lower Bound written by Ruchir Agarwal and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2015-10-23 with total page 40 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There has been much discussion about eliminating the “zero lower bound” by eliminating paper currency. But such a radical and difficult approach as eliminating paper currency is not necessary. Much as during the Great Depression—when countries were able to revive their economies by going off the gold standard—all that is needed to empower monetary policy to cut interest rates as much as needed for economic stimulus now is to change from a paper standard to an electronic money standard, and to be willing to have paper currency go away from par. This paper develops the idea further and shows how such a mechanism can be implemented in a minimalist way by using a time-varying paper currency deposit fee between private banks and the central bank. This allows the central bank to create a crawling-peg exchange rate between paper currency and electronic money; the paper currency interest rate can be either lowered below zero or raised above zero. Such an ability to vary the paper currency interest rate along with other key interest rates, makes it possible to stimulate investment and net exports as much as needed to revive the economy, even when inflation, interest rates, and economic activity are quite low, as they are currently in many countries. The paper also examines different options available to the central bank to return to par when negative interest rates are no longer needed, and the associated implications for the financial sector and debt contracts. Finally, the paper discusses various legal, political, and economic challenges of putting in place such a framework and how policymakers could address them.

Download or read book Negative Interest Rates written by Luís Brandão Marques and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2021-03-03 with total page 84 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This paper focuses on negative interest rate policies and covers a broad range of its effects, with a detailed discussion of findings in the academic literature and of broader country experiences.

Download or read book Inflation Expectations written by Peter J. N. Sinclair and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2009-12-16 with total page 402 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Inflation is regarded by the many as a menace that damages business and can only make life worse for households. Keeping it low depends critically on ensuring that firms and workers expect it to be low. So expectations of inflation are a key influence on national economic welfare. This collection pulls together a galaxy of world experts (including Roy Batchelor, Richard Curtin and Staffan Linden) on inflation expectations to debate different aspects of the issues involved. The main focus of the volume is on likely inflation developments. A number of factors have led practitioners and academic observers of monetary policy to place increasing emphasis recently on inflation expectations. One is the spread of inflation targeting, invented in New Zealand over 15 years ago, but now encompassing many important economies including Brazil, Canada, Israel and Great Britain. Even more significantly, the European Central Bank, the Bank of Japan and the United States Federal Bank are the leading members of another group of monetary institutions all considering or implementing moves in the same direction. A second is the large reduction in actual inflation that has been observed in most countries over the past decade or so. These considerations underscore the critical – and largely underrecognized - importance of inflation expectations. They emphasize the importance of the issues, and the great need for a volume that offers a clear, systematic treatment of them. This book, under the steely editorship of Peter Sinclair, should prove very important for policy makers and monetary economists alike.

Download or read book Negative Interest Rate Policy NIRP written by Andreas Jobst and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2016-08-10 with total page 48 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: More than two years ago the European Central Bank (ECB) adopted a negative interest rate policy (NIRP) to achieve its price stability objective. Negative interest rates have so far supported easier financial conditions and contributed to a modest expansion in credit, demonstrating that the zero lower bound is less binding than previously thought. However, interest rate cuts also weigh on bank profitability. Substantial rate cuts may at some point outweigh the benefits from higher asset values and stronger aggregate demand. Further monetary accommodation may need to rely more on credit easing and an expansion of the ECB’s balance sheet rather than substantial additional reductions in the policy rate.

Download or read book Zero Lower Bound Is it a problem in the Euro Area written by Lars Protze and published by diplom.de. This book was released on 2008-04-17 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Inhaltsangabe:Abstract: The case of Japan showed that the zero bound is a problem for the conduct of monetary policy that even nowadays has to be considered. For several years Japan experienced deflation and a short rate very close to zero leaving monetary policy almost helpless to boost economic activity. The same fears came up in America and Europe as economic performance deteriorated and nominal interest rates were lowered rapidly to stimulate the economy. However, lowering the interest rate to stimulate the economy is only possible when interest rates are above zero. In this paper it shall be explored how optimal monetary policy is conducted with the constraint that interest rates cannot fall below zero and how large the risk to hit the bound is in the euro area. The first part is done in a New Keynesian model with sticky prices but flexible wages the second in an estimated model of the euro area. The outline of the paper is as follows. In the next chapter an overview of the work on the zero bound and monetary policy is presented. Thereafter the New Keynesian model as it was presented by Eggertson and Woodford will be used to determine optimal policy. It will be shown that quantitative easing, as it was done by the Bank of Japan, is not an appropriate tool in the model surrounding to escape a deflation spiral and what should be done instead. It will be shown that credible commitment is able to overcome most of the distortions induced by the zero bound. The central bank should commit itself to a target for the price level instead of a target for the rate of inflation. The optimal solution involves credible commitment to cause subsequent inflation when deflation vanishes. This management of expectation will help to escape a deflation spiral faster and causes lower welfare losses. After treating the phenomenon in a model surrounding it shall be explored what the chances are to slide into that vicious circle if monetary policy follows a Taylor rule and how likely the zero bound is under different wage contracting specifications. This will be done in a small estimated euro area economy model. It shall also be considered how the announcement of a positive inflation target well above zero may help to avoid the zero bound. This was done by the European Central Bank that changed its target from an inflation rate between zero and two to a rate below, but close to, two percent. Finally the results will be discussed focussing on the assumptions [...]

Download or read book Monetary Policy Inflation and the Business Cycle written by Jordi Galí and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2015-06-09 with total page 295 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The classic introduction to the New Keynesian economic model This revised second edition of Monetary Policy, Inflation, and the Business Cycle provides a rigorous graduate-level introduction to the New Keynesian framework and its applications to monetary policy. The New Keynesian framework is the workhorse for the analysis of monetary policy and its implications for inflation, economic fluctuations, and welfare. A backbone of the new generation of medium-scale models under development at major central banks and international policy institutions, the framework provides the theoretical underpinnings for the price stability–oriented strategies adopted by most central banks in the industrialized world. Using a canonical version of the New Keynesian model as a reference, Jordi Galí explores various issues pertaining to monetary policy's design, including optimal monetary policy and the desirability of simple policy rules. He analyzes several extensions of the baseline model, allowing for cost-push shocks, nominal wage rigidities, and open economy factors. In each case, the effects on monetary policy are addressed, with emphasis on the desirability of inflation-targeting policies. New material includes the zero lower bound on nominal interest rates and an analysis of unemployment’s significance for monetary policy. The most up-to-date introduction to the New Keynesian framework available A single benchmark model used throughout New materials and exercises included An ideal resource for graduate students, researchers, and market analysts

Download or read book Bayesian Estimation of DSGE Models written by Edward P. Herbst and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2015-12-29 with total page 295 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) models have become one of the workhorses of modern macroeconomics and are extensively used for academic research as well as forecasting and policy analysis at central banks. This book introduces readers to state-of-the-art computational techniques used in the Bayesian analysis of DSGE models. The book covers Markov chain Monte Carlo techniques for linearized DSGE models, novel sequential Monte Carlo methods that can be used for parameter inference, and the estimation of nonlinear DSGE models based on particle filter approximations of the likelihood function. The theoretical foundations of the algorithms are discussed in depth, and detailed empirical applications and numerical illustrations are provided. The book also gives invaluable advice on how to tailor these algorithms to specific applications and assess the accuracy and reliability of the computations. Bayesian Estimation of DSGE Models is essential reading for graduate students, academic researchers, and practitioners at policy institutions.

Download or read book Breaking Through the Zero Lower Bound written by Ruchir Agarwal and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2015-10-23 with total page 40 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There has been much discussion about eliminating the “zero lower bound” by eliminating paper currency. But such a radical and difficult approach as eliminating paper currency is not necessary. Much as during the Great Depression—when countries were able to revive their economies by going off the gold standard—all that is needed to empower monetary policy to cut interest rates as much as needed for economic stimulus now is to change from a paper standard to an electronic money standard, and to be willing to have paper currency go away from par. This paper develops the idea further and shows how such a mechanism can be implemented in a minimalist way by using a time-varying paper currency deposit fee between private banks and the central bank. This allows the central bank to create a crawling-peg exchange rate between paper currency and electronic money; the paper currency interest rate can be either lowered below zero or raised above zero. Such an ability to vary the paper currency interest rate along with other key interest rates, makes it possible to stimulate investment and net exports as much as needed to revive the economy, even when inflation, interest rates, and economic activity are quite low, as they are currently in many countries. The paper also examines different options available to the central bank to return to par when negative interest rates are no longer needed, and the associated implications for the financial sector and debt contracts. Finally, the paper discusses various legal, political, and economic challenges of putting in place such a framework and how policymakers could address them.

Download or read book International Macroeconomics in the Wake of the Global Financial Crisis written by Laurent Ferrara and published by Springer. This book was released on 2018-06-13 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book collects selected articles addressing several currently debated issues in the field of international macroeconomics. They focus on the role of the central banks in the debate on how to come to terms with the long-term decline in productivity growth, insufficient aggregate demand, high economic uncertainty and growing inequalities following the global financial crisis. Central banks are of considerable importance in this debate since understanding the sluggishness of the recovery process as well as its implications for the natural interest rate are key to assessing output gaps and the monetary policy stance. The authors argue that a more dynamic domestic and external aggregate demand helps to raise the inflation rate, easing the constraint deriving from the zero lower bound and allowing monetary policy to depart from its current ultra-accommodative position. Beyond macroeconomic factors, the book also discusses a supportive financial environment as a precondition for the rebound of global economic activity, stressing that understanding capital flows is a prerequisite for economic-policy decisions.