IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cpr/ceprdp/12559.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Versatile Forward Guidance: Escaping or Switching?

Author

Listed:
  • Gersbach, Hans
  • Liu, Yulin
  • Tischhauser, Martin

Abstract

We examine how forward guidance should be designed when an economy faces negative natural real interest-rate shocks and subsequent supply shocks. Besides a standard approach for forward guidance, we introduce two flexible designs: escaping and switching. With escaping forward guidance, the central banker commits to low interest rates in the presence of negative natural real interest-rate shocks, contingent on a self-chosen inflation rate threshold. With switching forward guidance, the central banker can switch from interest-rate forecasts to inflation forecasts any time in order to stabilize supply shocks. We show that for small and large natural real interest-rate shocks, escaping forward guidance is preferable to any of the other approaches, while switching forward guidance is optimal for intermediate natural real interest-rate shocks. Furthermore, with the polynomial chaos expansion method, we show that our findings are globally robust to parameter uncertainty. In addition, using Sobol’ Indices, we identify the structural parameters with the greatest effect on the results.

Suggested Citation

  • Gersbach, Hans & Liu, Yulin & Tischhauser, Martin, 2018. "Versatile Forward Guidance: Escaping or Switching?," CEPR Discussion Papers 12559, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    • Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:12559
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://cepr.org/publications/DP12559
    Download Restriction: CEPR Discussion Papers are free to download for our researchers, subscribers and members. If you fall into one of these categories but have trouble downloading our papers, please contact us at subscribers@cepr.org
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Park, Sung Y. & Bera, Anil K., 2009. "Maximum entropy autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity model," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 150(2), pages 219-230, June.
    2. Orphanides, Athanasios & Wieland, Volker, 2000. "Efficient Monetary Policy Design near Price Stability," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 14(4), pages 327-365, December.
    3. Ederer, Florian & Stremitzer, Alexander, 2017. "Promises and expectations," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 161-178.
    4. Ellingsen, Tore & Johannesson, Magnus & Tjøtta, Sigve & Torsvik, Gaute, 2010. "Testing guilt aversion," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 68(1), pages 95-107, January.
    5. Tore Ellingsen & Magnus Johannesson, 2004. "Promises, Threats and Fairness," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 114(495), pages 397-420, April.
    6. Alan S. Blinder & Michael Ehrmann & Marcel Fratzscher & Jakob De Haan & David-Jan Jansen, 2008. "Central Bank Communication and Monetary Policy: A Survey of Theory and Evidence," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 46(4), pages 910-945, December.
    7. Mark Gertler & Jordi Gali & Richard Clarida, 1999. "The Science of Monetary Policy: A New Keynesian Perspective," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 37(4), pages 1661-1707, December.
    8. Ben S. Bernanke & Julio J. Rotemberg (ed.), 1997. "NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1997," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 026252242x, December.
    9. Gersbach, Hans & Hahn, Volker, 2014. "Inflation forecast contracts," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 26-40.
    10. Marc P. Giannoni, 2007. "Robust optimal monetary policy in a forward-looking model with parameter and shock uncertainty," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 22(1), pages 179-213.
    11. Gersbach, Hans & Hahn, Volker & Liu, Yulin, 2019. "Forward Guidance Contracts," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 23(8), pages 3386-3423, December.
    12. Marco Ratto, 2008. "Analysing DSGE Models with Global Sensitivity Analysis," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 31(2), pages 115-139, March.
    13. Adam, Klaus, 2007. "Optimal monetary policy with imperfect common knowledge," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(2), pages 267-301, March.
    14. Glenn D. Rudebusch & John C. Williams, 2008. "Revealing the Secrets of the Temple: The Value of Publishing Central Bank Interest Rate Projections," NBER Chapters, in: Asset Prices and Monetary Policy, pages 247-289, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Gauti B. Eggertsson & Michael Woodford, 2003. "The Zero Bound on Interest Rates and Optimal Monetary Policy," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 34(1), pages 139-235.
    16. Sudret, Bruno, 2008. "Global sensitivity analysis using polynomial chaos expansions," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 93(7), pages 964-979.
    17. Christoph Vanberg, 2008. "Why Do People Keep Their Promises? An Experimental Test of Two Explanations -super-1," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 76(6), pages 1467-1480, November.
    18. Alan S. Blinder & Michael Ehrmann & Marcel Fratzscher & Jakob De Haan & David-Jan Jansen, 2008. "Central Bank Communication and Monetary Policy: A Survey of Theory and Evidence," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 46(4), pages 910-945, December.
    19. Boneva, Lena & Harrison, Richard & Waldron, Matt, 2015. "Threshold-based forward guidance: hedging the zero bound," Bank of England working papers 561, Bank of England.
    20. Mark Gertler & Jordi Gali & Richard Clarida, 1999. "The Science of Monetary Policy: A New Keynesian Perspective," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 37(4), pages 1661-1707, December.
    21. Maria Lucia Florez-Jimenez & Julian A. Parra-Polania, 2016. "Forward guidance with an escape clause: when half a promise is better than a full one," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 48(15), pages 1372-1381, March.
    22. repec:pri:cepsud:161blinder is not listed on IDEAS
    23. Jeffrey C. Fuhrer, 2006. "Intrinsic and Inherited Inflation Persistence," International Journal of Central Banking, International Journal of Central Banking, vol. 2(3), September.
    24. Ismayilov, H. & Potters, J.J.M., 2012. "Promises as Commitments," Discussion Paper 2012-064, Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research.
    25. Michael Woodford, 2012. "Methods of policy accommodation at the interest-rate lower bound," Proceedings - Economic Policy Symposium - Jackson Hole, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, pages 185-288.
    26. Davide Debortoli & Aeimit Lakdawala, 2016. "How Credible Is the Federal Reserve? A Structural Estimation of Policy Re-optimizations," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 8(3), pages 42-76, July.
    27. Hans Gersbach & Volker Hahn, 2011. "Monetary Policy Inclinations," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 43(8), pages 1707-1717, December.
    28. Kenneth Rogoff, 1985. "The Optimal Degree of Commitment to an Intermediate Monetary Target," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 100(4), pages 1169-1189.
    29. Charness, Gary & Dufwenberg, Martin, 2003. "Promises & Partnership," Research Papers in Economics 2003:3, Stockholm University, Department of Economics.
    30. Svensson, Lars E.O., 2009. "Transparency under Flexible Inflation Targeting: Experiences and Challenges," CEPR Discussion Papers 7213, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    31. Deman, G. & Konakli, K. & Sudret, B. & Kerrou, J. & Perrochet, P. & Benabderrahmane, H., 2016. "Using sparse polynomial chaos expansions for the global sensitivity analysis of groundwater lifetime expectancy in a multi-layered hydrogeological model," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 147(C), pages 156-169.
    32. Richhild Moessner & David-Jan Jansen & Jakob de Haan, 2017. "Communication About Future Policy Rates In Theory And Practice: A Survey," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(3), pages 678-711, July.
    33. Ostrom, Elinor & Walker, James & Gardner, Roy, 1992. "Covenants with and without a Sword: Self-Governance Is Possible," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 86(2), pages 404-417, June.
    34. Gary Charness & Martin Dufwenberg, 2006. "Promises and Partnership," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 74(6), pages 1579-1601, November.
    35. Alan S. Blinder, 2000. "Central-Bank Credibility: Why Do We Care? How Do We Build It?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(5), pages 1421-1431, December.
    36. Amato, Jeffery D. & Laubach, Thomas, 2003. "Estimation and control of an optimization-based model with sticky prices and wages," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 27(7), pages 1181-1215, May.
    37. Gavin Goy & Cars Homme & Kostas Mavromatis, 2018. "Forward Guidance and the Role of Central Bank Credibility," DNB Working Papers 614, Netherlands Central Bank, Research Department.
    38. Schaumburg, Ernst & Tambalotti, Andrea, 2007. "An investigation of the gains from commitment in monetary policy," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(2), pages 302-324, March.
    39. Roberds, William, 1987. "Models of Policy under Stochastic Replanning," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 28(3), pages 731-755, October.
    40. Charness, Gary & Dufwenberg, Martin, 2010. "Bare promises: An experiment," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 107(2), pages 281-283, May.
    41. Daniel Harenberg & Stefano Marelli & Bruno Sudret & Viktor Winschel, 2019. "Uncertainty quantification and global sensitivity analysis for economic models," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 10(1), pages 1-41, January.
    42. Campbell, John Y. (ed.), 2008. "Asset Prices and Monetary Policy," National Bureau of Economic Research Books, University of Chicago Press, number 9780226092119, December.
    43. Mr. Gauti B. Eggertsson, 2003. "How to Fight Deflation in a Liquidity Trap: Committing to Being Irresponsible," IMF Working Papers 2003/064, International Monetary Fund.
    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. Salomon Faure & Hans Gersbach, 2021. "On the money creation approach to banking," Annals of Finance, Springer, vol. 17(3), pages 265-318, September.

    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. Ederer, Florian & Stremitzer, Alexander, 2017. "Promises and expectations," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 161-178.
    2. Richhild Moessner & David-Jan Jansen & Jakob de Haan, 2017. "Communication About Future Policy Rates In Theory And Practice: A Survey," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(3), pages 678-711, July.
    3. Di Bartolomeo, Giovanni & Dufwenberg, Martin & Papa, Stefano & Passarelli, Francesco, 2019. "Promises, expectations & causation," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 137-146.
    4. Antinyan, Armenak & Corazzini, Luca & D'Agostino, Elena & Pavesi, Filippo, 2023. "Watch your words: An experimental study on communication and the opportunity cost of delegation," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 214(C), pages 216-232.
    5. Cary Deck & Maroš Servátka & Steven Tucker, 2013. "An examination of the effect of messages on cooperation under double-blind and single-blind payoff procedures," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 16(4), pages 597-607, December.
    6. Giovanni Di Bartolomeo & Martin Dufwenberg & Stefano Papa, 2023. "Promises and partner-switch," Journal of the Economic Science Association, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 9(1), pages 77-89, June.
    7. Ann-Kathrin Koessler & Lionel Page & Uwe Dulleck, 2021. "Public cooperation statements," Journal of Economic Interaction and Coordination, Springer;Society for Economic Science with Heterogeneous Interacting Agents, vol. 16(4), pages 747-767, October.
    8. Ann-Kathrin Koessler & Benno Torgler & Lars P. Feld & Bruno S. Frey, 2016. "Commitment to Pay Taxes: A Field Experiment on the Importance of Promise," CESifo Working Paper Series 6186, CESifo.
    9. Man-Keung Tang & Mr. Xiangrong Yu, 2011. "Communication of Central Bank Thinking and Inflation Dynamics," IMF Working Papers 2011/209, International Monetary Fund.
    10. van Holle, Frederiek, 2017. "Essays in empirical finance and monetary policy," Other publications TiSEM 30d11a4b-7bc9-4c81-ad24-5, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    11. Kleinknecht, Janina, 2019. "A man of his word? An experiment on gender differences in promise keeping," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 168(C), pages 251-268.
    12. Feroli, Michael & Greenlaw, David & Hooper, Peter & Mishkin, Frederic S. & Sufi, Amir, 2017. "Language after liftoff: Fed communication away from the zero lower bound," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(3), pages 452-490.
    13. Schütte, Miriam & Thoma, Carmen, 2014. "Promises and Image Concerns," Discussion Papers in Economics 20861, University of Munich, Department of Economics.
    14. Zakaria Babutsidze & Nobuyuki Hanaki & Adam Zylbersztejn, 2021. "Nonverbal content and trust: An experiment on digital communication," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 59(4), pages 1517-1532, October.
    15. Fluet, Claude & Galbiati, Rpbertp, 2016. "Lois et normes : les enseignements de l'économie comportementale," L'Actualité Economique, Société Canadienne de Science Economique, vol. 92(1-2), pages 191-215, Mars-Juin.
    16. Andersson, Ola & Wengström, Erik, 2012. "Credible communication and cooperation: Experimental evidence from multi-stage Games," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 81(1), pages 207-219.
    17. Kyota Eguchi, 2017. "Guilty Conscience And Incentives With Performance Assessment Errors," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 55(1), pages 434-450, January.
    18. Uyanga Turmunkh & Martijn J. van den Assem & Dennie van Dolder, 2019. "Malleable Lies: Communication and Cooperation in a High Stakes TV Game Show," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 65(10), pages 4795-4812, October.
    19. Jérôme Hergueux & Nicolas Jacquemet & Stéphane Luchini & Jason F. Shogren, 2022. "Leveraging the Honor Code: Public Goods Contributions under Oath," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 81(3), pages 591-616, March.
    20. Hans Gersbach & Volker Hahn, 2008. "Forward Guidance for Monetary Policy: Is It Desirable?," CER-ETH Economics working paper series 08/84, CER-ETH - Center of Economic Research (CER-ETH) at ETH Zurich.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Forward guidance; Zero lower bound; Central banks; transparency; Global robustness; Sobol’ indices; Polynomial chaos expansion;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E31 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Price Level; Inflation; Deflation
    • E49 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Other
    • E52 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Monetary Policy
    • E58 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Central Banks and Their Policies

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:cpr:ceprdp:12559. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cepr.org .

    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.