IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/jecper/v37y2023i1p77-100.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Risk Appetite and the Risk-Taking Channel of Monetary Policy

Author

Listed:
  • Michael D. Bauer
  • Ben S. Bernanke
  • Eric Milstein

Abstract

Monetary policy affects financial markets and the broader economy in part by changing the risk appetite of investors. This article provides new evidence for this so-called risk-taking channel of monetary policy by revisiting and extending event-study analysis of Federal Open Market Committee announcements. We document significant effects of unexpected monetary policy changes on risk indicators drawn from equity, fixed-income, credit, and foreign exchange markets. We develop a new index of risk appetite based on the common component of these indicators. Surprise monetary easing leads to strong and persistent increases in our index, and vice versa for tightening surprises, consistent with the view that monetary policy affects asset prices in large part through its effects on risk appetite. We discuss the implications of the risk-taking channel for monetary policy transmission, optimal monetary policy, and financial stability.

Suggested Citation

  • Michael D. Bauer & Ben S. Bernanke & Eric Milstein, 2023. "Risk Appetite and the Risk-Taking Channel of Monetary Policy," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 37(1), pages 77-100, Winter.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:jecper:v:37:y:2023:i:1:p:77-100
    DOI: 10.1257/jep.37.1.77
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/jep.37.1.77
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://doi.org/10.3886/E183829V1
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/jep.37.1.77.appx
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/jep.37.1.77.ds
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1257/jep.37.1.77?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Beck, Roland & Berganza, Juan Carlos & Brüggemann, Axel & Cezar, Rafael & Eijking, Carlijn & Eller, Markus & Fuentes, Alberto & Alves, Joel Graça & Kreitz, Lilian & Marsilli, Clement & Moder, Isabella, 2023. "Recent advances in the literature on capital flow management," Occasional Paper Series 317, European Central Bank.
    2. Michael D. Bauer & Carolin Pflueger & Adi Sunderam, 2022. "Perceptions about Monetary Policy," NBER Working Papers 30480, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Chavleishvili, Sulkhan & Kremer, Manfred & Lund-Thomsen, Frederik, 2023. "Quantifying financial stability trade-offs for monetary policy: a quantile VAR approach," Working Paper Series 2833, European Central Bank.
    4. Guimaraes, Rodrigo & Pinter, Gabor & Wijnandts, Jean-Charles, 2023. "The liquidity state-dependence of monetary policy transmission," Bank of England working papers 1045, Bank of England.
    5. Georgiadis, Georgios & Jarociński, Marek, 2023. "Global spillovers from multi-dimensional US monetary policy," Working Paper Series 2881, European Central Bank.
    6. Willem THORBECKE, 2023. "Sectoral Evidence on Indonesian Economic Performance after the Pandemic," Discussion papers 23071, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    7. Zoë Arnaut-Hull & Michael D. Bauer, 2024. "Monetary Policy and Financial Conditions," FRBSF Economic Letter, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, vol. 2024(07), pages 1-6, February.
    8. Georgios Georgiadis & Gernot J. Müller & Ben Schumann, 2023. "Dollar Trinity and the Global Financial Cycle," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 2058, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • E23 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Production
    • E44 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Financial Markets and the Macroeconomy
    • E52 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Monetary Policy
    • F31 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - Foreign Exchange
    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates
    • G14 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Information and Market Efficiency; Event Studies; Insider Trading
    • G21 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Banks; Other Depository Institutions; Micro Finance Institutions; Mortgages

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:aea:jecper:v:37:y:2023:i:1:p:77-100. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Michael P. Albert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.