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Inertia in Taylor Rules

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  • John Driffill

    (Department of Economics, Mathematics & Statistics, Birkbeck)

  • Zeno Rotondi

Abstract

The inertia found in econometric estimates of interest rate rules is a continuing puzzle. Many reasons for it have been offered, though unsatisfactorily, and the issue remains open. In the empirical literature on interest rate rules, inertia in setting interest rates is typically modeled by specifying a Taylor rule with the lagged policy rate on the right hand side. We argue that inertia in the policy rule may simply reflect the inertia in the economy itself, since optimal rules typically inherit the inertia present in the model of the economy. Our hypothesis receives some support from US data. Hence we agree with Rudebusch (2002) that monetary inertia is, at least partly, an illusion, but for different reasons.

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Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by Birkbeck, Department of Economics, Mathematics & Statistics in its series Birkbeck Working Papers in Economics and Finance with number 0720.

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Date of creation: Nov 2007
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Handle: RePEc:bbk:bbkefp:0720

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Keywords: Monetary Policy; Interest Rate Rules; Taylor rule; Interest Rate Smoothing; Monetary Policy Inertia; Predictability of Interest Rates; Term Structure; Expectations Hypothesis;

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Cited by:
  1. Alessandro Flamini & Andrea Fracasso, 2009. "Household’s Preferences and Monetary Policy Inertia," Working Papers 2009002, The University of Sheffield, Department of Economics, revised Feb 2009.

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