IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/fip/feddst/00002.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Assessing monetary accommodation: a simple empirical model of monetary policy and its implications for unemployment and inflation

Author

Listed:
  • Alan Armen
  • Evan F. Koenig

Abstract

This note suggests that household wealth growth and a long-forward interest rate can be used to construct a simple and convenient reference standard for assessing the current stance of monetary policy. It shows that the difference between the federal funds rate and this reference interest rate is a powerful predictor of the unemployment rate and inflation, producing real-time forecasts that are competitive with consensus-based forecasts from surveys of forecasting professionals. Moreover, one can understand past FOMC policy actions as efforts to adjust the stance of policy, so measured, in response to unemployment and inflation gaps. There is little evidence of inertia in this version of the Taylor rule, in contrast to Taylor-rule specifications that assume a fixed reference real federal funds rate.

Suggested Citation

  • Alan Armen & Evan F. Koenig, 2015. "Assessing monetary accommodation: a simple empirical model of monetary policy and its implications for unemployment and inflation," Staff Papers, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, issue Dec.
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:feddst:00002
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.dallasfed.org/pubs/historical/~/media/documents/research/staff/staff1501.pdf
    File Function: Full Text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Rudebusch, Glenn D. & Williams, John C., 2009. "Forecasting Recessions: The Puzzle of the Enduring Power of the Yield Curve," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 27(4), pages 492-503.
    2. Rudebusch, Glenn D., 2002. "Term structure evidence on interest rate smoothing and monetary policy inertia," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(6), pages 1161-1187, September.
    3. N. Kundan Kishor & Evan F. Koenig, 2014. "Credit Indicators as Predictors of Economic Activity: A Real‐Time VAR Analysis," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 46(2-3), pages 545-564, March.
    4. Taylor, John B., 1993. "Discretion versus policy rules in practice," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 195-214, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Razzak, Weshah, 2020. "The Riddle of the Natural Rate of Interest," MPRA Paper 102663, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 25 Aug 2020.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Evans, Charles L. & Marshall, David A., 2007. "Economic determinants of the nominal treasury yield curve," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(7), pages 1986-2003, October.
    2. Seitz, Franz & Baumann, Ursel & Albuquerque, Bruno, 2015. "The information content of money and credit for US activity," Working Paper Series 1803, European Central Bank.
    3. Marattin, Luigi & Marzo, Massimiliano & Zagaglia, Paolo, 2013. "Distortionary tax instruments and implementable monetary policy," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 25(C), pages 219-243.
    4. Minford, Patrick & Ou, Zhirong, 2013. "Taylor Rule or optimal timeless policy? Reconsidering the Fed's behavior since 1982," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 32(C), pages 113-123.
    5. Huse, Cristian, 2011. "Term structure modelling with observable state variables," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 35(12), pages 3240-3252.
    6. Botzen, W.J. Wouter & Marey, Philip S., 2010. "Did the ECB respond to the stock market before the crisis?," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 32(3), pages 303-322, May.
    7. Ayşegül Ladin SÜMER, 2020. "Optimal Taylor rule in the new era central banking perspective," Theoretical and Applied Economics, Asociatia Generala a Economistilor din Romania - AGER, vol. 0(1(622), S), pages 159-170, Spring.
    8. Pär Österholm, 2005. "The Taylor Rule: A Spurious Regression?," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 57(3), pages 217-247, July.
    9. Silvia Sgherri & Tamim Bayoumi, 2004. "Monetary Magic? How the Fed Improved the Supply Side of the Economy," Econometric Society 2004 Australasian Meetings 20, Econometric Society.
    10. Glenn D. Rudebusch & Eric T. Swanson & Tao Wu, 2006. "The Bond Yield "Conundrum" from a Macro-Finance Perspective," Monetary and Economic Studies, Institute for Monetary and Economic Studies, Bank of Japan, vol. 24(S1), pages 83-109, December.
    11. Tae-Hwan Kim & Paul Mizen & Thanaset Chevapatrakul, 2008. "Forecasting changes in UK interest rates," Journal of Forecasting, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 27(1), pages 53-74.
    12. Glenn D. Rudebusch, 2002. "Assessing Nominal Income Rules for Monetary Policy with Model and Data Uncertainty," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 112(479), pages 402-432, April.
    13. Timo Wollmershäuser & Wolfgang Nierhaus & Nikolay Hristov & Dorine Boumans & Marcell Göttert & Christian Grimme & S. Lauterbacher & Robert Lehmann & Wolfgang Meister & Andreas Peichl & Magnus Reif & F, 2017. "ifo Economic Forecast 2017/2018: Germany’s Economy Is Strong and Stable," ifo Schnelldienst, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 70(12), pages 30-83, June.
    14. Michael T. Kiley, 2008. "Monetary policy actions and long-run inflation expectations," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2008-03, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    15. Kurz, Mordecai & Jin, Hehui & Motolese, Maurizio, 2005. "The role of expectations in economic fluctuations and the efficacy of monetary policy," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 29(11), pages 2017-2065, November.
    16. Jonathan Benchimol & André Fourçans, 2016. "Nominal income versus Taylor-type rules in practice," Working Papers hal-01357870, HAL.
    17. Dewachter, Hans & Iania, Leonardo & Lyrio, Marco, 2011. "A New-Keynesian model of the yield curve with learning dynamics: A Bayesian evaluation," MPRA Paper 34461, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised Sep 2011.
    18. Anna Florio, 2016. "The central bank as shaper and observer of events: The case of the yield spread," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 49(1), pages 320-346, February.
    19. Nejla Adanur Aklan & Mehmet Nargelecekenler, 2008. "Taylor Rule in Practice: Evidence from Turkey," International Advances in Economic Research, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 14(2), pages 156-166, May.
    20. Bernd Hayo & Matthias Neuenkirch, 2011. "Canadian Interest Rate Setting: The Information Content of Canadian and U.S. Central Bank Communication," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 78(1), pages 131-148, July.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Unemployment; monetary policy; real-time forecasting; inflation; Taylor rule; neutral rate;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E37 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Forecasting and Simulation: Models and Applications
    • E24 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution; Aggregate Human Capital; Aggregate Labor Productivity
    • E47 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Forecasting and Simulation: Models and Applications
    • E52 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Monetary Policy
    • E31 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Price Level; Inflation; Deflation
    • E43 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Interest Rates: Determination, Term Structure, and Effects
    • E27 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Forecasting and Simulation: Models and Applications

    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:fip:feddst:00002. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: Amy Chapman (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/frbdaus.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.