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Does the Fed act gradually? a VAR analysis

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Author Info
Brian Sack
Abstract

The tendency for changes in the federal funds rate to be implemented gradually has been considered evidence of an interest-rate smoothing objective for the Federal Reserve. This paper investigates whether gradual movements in the federal funds rate can be explained by the dynamic structure of the economy and the uncertainty that the Fed faces regarding this structure, without recourse to including an ad-hoc interest rate smoothing argument in the objective function of the Fed. The analysis calculates the optimal funds rate policy given the structural form of the economy estimated in a VAR. In the absence of parameter uncertainty, the calculated policy responds more aggressively to changes in the economy than the observed policy, resulting in a substantially higher volatility of the funds rate than observed. Parameter uncertainty, however, limits the willingness of the Fed to deviate from the policy rule that has been previously implemented. Because the Fed has historically smoothed interest rates, the calculated policy under parameter uncertainty can account for a considerable portion of the gradualism observed in funds rate movements.

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Paper provided by Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.) in its series Finance and Economics Discussion Series with number 1998-17.

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Date of creation: 1998
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Handle: RePEc:fip:fedgfe:1998-17

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Keywords: Federal funds market (United States) ; Interest rates;

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References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
  1. Clarida, Richard & Galí, Jordi & Gertler, Mark, 1998. "Monetary Policy Rules and Macroeconomic Stability: Evidence and Some Theory," CEPR Discussion Papers 1908, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  2. Sims, Christopher A, 1980. "Macroeconomics and Reality," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 48(1), pages 1-48, January. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  3. Christopher A. Sims, 1986. "Are forecasting models usable for policy analysis?," Quarterly Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, issue Win, pages 2-16. [Downloadable!]
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  5. Volker Wieland, . "Monetary Policy and Uncertainty about the Natural Unemployment Rate," Computing in Economics and Finance 1997 11, Society for Computational Economics. [Downloadable!]
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  6. 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. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  7. Lucas, Robert Jr, 1976. "Econometric policy evaluation: A critique," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 1(1), pages 19-46, January. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  8. Bernanke, Ben S. & Mihov, Ilian, 1995. "Measuring Monetary Policy," Economics Series 10, Institute for Advanced Studies. [Downloadable!]
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  9. Volker Wieland, 1996. "Learning by doing and the value of optimal experimentation," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 96-5, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.). [Downloadable!]
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  10. Glenn D. Rudebusch, 1995. "Federal Reserve interest rate targeting, rational expectations, and the term structure," Working Papers in Applied Economic Theory 95-02, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
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  11. Bennett T. McCallum & Edward Nelson, 2000. "An Optimizing IS-LM Specification for Monetary Policy and Business Cycle Analysis," NBER Working Papers 5875, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  12. Goodfriend, Marvin, 1991. "Interest rates and the conduct of monetary policy," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 34(1), pages 7-30, January. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  13. Stephen G. Cecchetti, 1996. "Inflation Indicators and Inflation Policy," NBER Working Papers 5161, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  14. Julio Rotemberg & Michael Woodford, 1997. "An Optimization-Based Econometric Framework for the Evaluation of Monetary Policy," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1997, Volume 12, pages 297-361 National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!]
  15. Alex Cukierman, 1989. "Why does the Fed smooth interest rates?," Proceedings, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, pages 111-157.
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Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Aaron Drew & L Christopher Plantier, 2000. "Interest rate smoothing in New Zealand and other dollar bloc countries," Reserve Bank of New Zealand Discussion Paper Series DP2000/10, Reserve Bank of New Zealand. [Downloadable!]
  2. Ben Martin & Chris Salmon, . "Should uncertain monetary policy-makers do less?," Bank of England working papers 99, Bank of England. [Downloadable!]
  3. Gabriel Srour, 2001. "Why Do Central Banks Smooth Interest Rates?," Working Papers 01-17, Bank of Canada. [Downloadable!]
  4. Nessén, Marianne, 1999. "Targeting Inflation over the Short, Medium and Long Term," Working Paper Series 98, Sveriges Riksbank (Central Bank of Sweden). [Downloadable!]
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  5. Edilean Kleber da Silva Bejarano Aragón & Marcelo Savino Portugal, 2008. "Nonlinearities in Central Bank of Brazil’s reaction function: the case of asymmetric preferences," Anais do XXXVI Encontro Nacional de Economia [Proceedings of the 36th Brazilian Economics Meeting] 200807151356590, ANPEC - Associação Nacional dos Centros de Pósgraduação em Economia [Brazilian Association of Graduate Programs in Economics]. [Downloadable!]
  6. Adam Cagliarini & Guy Debelle, 2000. "The Effect of Uncertainty on Monetary Policy: How Good are the Brakes?," Working Papers Central Bank of Chile 74, Central Bank of Chile. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  7. G. Peersman & R. Straub, 2006. "Putting the New Keynesian Model to a Test," Working Papers of Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Ghent University, Belgium 06/375, Ghent University, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration. [Downloadable!]
  8. Söderström, Ulf, 1999. "Monetary policy with uncertain parameters," Working Paper Series 83, Sveriges Riksbank (Central Bank of Sweden). [Downloadable!]
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  9. Michael Dueker, 1999. "Measuring monetary policy inertia in target Fed funds rate changes," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, issue Sep, pages 3-10. [Downloadable!]
  10. Söderström, Ulf, 1999. "Should central banks be more aggressive?," Working Paper Series 84, Sveriges Riksbank (Central Bank of Sweden). [Downloadable!]
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  11. Paul Mizen & Boris Hofmann, . "Base rate pass-through: evidence from banks' and building societies' retail rates," Bank of England working papers 170, Bank of England. [Downloadable!]
  12. Roland Straub & Gert Peersman, 2006. "Putting the New Keynesian Model to a Test," IMF Working Papers 06/135, International Monetary Fund. [Downloadable!]
  13. Carlo A. Favero & Riccardo Rovelli, . "Modeling and identifying central banks' preferences," Working Papers 148, IGIER (Innocenzo Gasparini Institute for Economic Research), Bocconi University. [Downloadable!]
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  14. Ling Hu & Peter C.B. Phillips, 2002. "Dynamics of the Federal Funds Target Rate: A Nonstationary Discrete Choice Approach," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 1365, Cowles Foundation, Yale University. [Downloadable!]
  15. Michael Woodford, 1999. "Optimal Monetary Policy Inertia," NBER Working Papers 7261, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  16. Ben Martin, . "Caution and gradualism in monetary policy under uncertainty," Bank of England working papers 105, Bank of England. [Downloadable!]
  17. Monika Piazzesi, 2001. "An Econometric Model of the Yield Curve with Macroeconomic Jump Effects," NBER Working Papers 8246, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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