IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/fip/fedlwp/2007-039.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The unusual behavior of the federal funds and 10-year Treasury rates: a conundrum or Goodhart’s Law?

Author

Listed:
  • Daniel L. Thornton

Abstract

In February 2005, former Chairman Alan Greenspan referred to the decline in long-term rates in the wake of the Fed increasing the target for the federal funds rate by 150 basis points as a ?conundrum.? Greenspan?s remarks generated considerable interest and research. I show that the relationship between the 10 year Treasury yield and the federal funds rate changed dramatically in the late 1980s, well in advance of Greenspan?s observation. I argue that the marked change in the relationship between the federal funds rate and long-term yields is a natural consequence of Goodhart?s Law.

Suggested Citation

  • Daniel L. Thornton, 2008. "The unusual behavior of the federal funds and 10-year Treasury rates: a conundrum or Goodhart’s Law?," Working Papers 2007-039, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedlwp:2007-039
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://research.stlouisfed.org/wp/2007/2007-039.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Daniel L. Thornton, 2007. "The lower and upper bounds of the Federal Open Market Committee's long-run inflation objective," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, vol. 89(May), pages 183-194.
    2. Diebold, Francis X. & Chen, Celia, 1996. "Testing structural stability with endogenous breakpoint A size comparison of analytic and bootstrap procedures," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 70(1), pages 221-241, January.
    3. 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.
    4. Ben S. Bernanke & Vincent R. Reinhart & Brian P. Sack, 2004. "Monetary Policy Alternatives at the Zero Bound: An Empirical Assessment," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 35(2), pages 1-100.
    5. Nelson Edward, 2005. "The Great Inflation of the Seventies: What Really Happened?," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 5(1), pages 1-50, July.
    6. Christina D. Romer & David Romer, 2002. "The evolution of economic understanding and postwar stabilization policy," Proceedings - Economic Policy Symposium - Jackson Hole, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, pages 11-78.
    7. Troy Davig & Eric M. Leeper, 2007. "Generalizing the Taylor Principle," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(3), pages 607-635, June.
    8. Kim, Don H. & Orphanides, Athanasios, 2012. "Term Structure Estimation with Survey Data on Interest Rate Forecasts," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 47(1), pages 241-272, February.
    9. William Poole & Robert H. Rasche & Daniel L. Thornton, 2002. "Market anticipations of monetary policy actions," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, vol. 84(Jul), pages 65-94.
    10. Rudebusch, Glenn D., 1995. "Federal Reserve interest rate targeting, rational expectations, and the term structure," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 35(2), pages 245-274, April.
    11. Paul Mizen (ed.), 2003. "Central Banking, Monetary Theory and Practice," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 2329.
    12. Don H. Kim & Jonathan H. Wright, 2005. "An arbitrage-free three-factor term structure model and the recent behavior of long-term yields and distant-horizon forward rates," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2005-33, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    13. Unknown, 2005. "Forward," 2005 Conference: Slovenia in the EU - Challenges for Agriculture, Food Science and Rural Affairs, November 10-11, 2005, Moravske Toplice, Slovenia 183804, Slovenian Association of Agricultural Economists (DAES).
    14. Glenn D. Rudebusch & Tao Wu, 2007. "Accounting for a Shift in Term Structure Behavior with No-Arbitrage and Macro-Finance Models," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 39(2-3), pages 395-422, March.
    15. William Poole, 2007. "Milton and money stock control," Speech 118, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
    16. Thornton, Daniel L., 2004. "The Fed and short-term rates: Is it open market operations, open mouth operations or interest rate smoothing?," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 28(3), pages 475-498, March.
    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. Daniel L. Thornton, 2014. "The identification of the response of interest rates to monetary policy actions using market-based measures of monetary policy shocks," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 66(1), pages 67-87, January.
    2. Thornton, Daniel L., 2014. "Monetary policy: Why money matters (and interest rates don’t)," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 202-213.
    3. Daniel L. Thornton, 2009. "How did we get to inflation targeting and where do we go now? a perspective from the U.S. experience," Working Papers 2009-038, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.

    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. Daniel L. Thornton, 2018. "Greenspan's Conundrum and the Fed's Ability to Affect Long‐Term Yields," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 50(2-3), pages 513-543, March.
    2. Jardet, Caroline & Monfort, Alain & Pegoraro, Fulvio, 2013. "No-arbitrage Near-Cointegrated VAR(p) term structure models, term premia and GDP growth," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(2), pages 389-402.
    3. Refet S. Gürkaynak & Jonathan H. Wright, 2012. "Macroeconomics and the Term Structure," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 50(2), pages 331-367, June.
    4. Glenn D. Rudebusch & Brian P. Sack & Eric T. Swanson, 2007. "Macroeconomic implications of changes in the term premium," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, vol. 89(Jul), pages 241-270.
    5. Rudebusch, Glenn D. & Swanson, Eric T., 2008. "Examining the bond premium puzzle with a DSGE model," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(Supplemen), pages 111-126, October.
    6. Martin Kliem & Alexander Meyer‐Gohde, 2022. "(Un)expected monetary policy shocks and term premia," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 37(3), pages 477-499, April.
    7. 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.
    8. Bandholz, Harm & Clostermann, Joerg & Seitz, Franz, 2007. "Explaining the US Bond Yield Conundrum," MPRA Paper 2386, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. David K. Backus & Jonathan H. Wright, 2007. "Cracking the Conundrum," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 38(1), pages 293-329.
    10. Hamilton, James D. & Wu, Jing Cynthia, 2012. "Identification and estimation of Gaussian affine term structure models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 168(2), pages 315-331.
    11. Catte, Pietro & Cova, Pietro & Pagano, Patrizio & Visco, Ignazio, 2011. "The role of macroeconomic policies in the global crisis," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 33(6), pages 787-803.
    12. Taboga, Marco, 2009. "Macro-finance VARs and bond risk premia: A caveat," Review of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(4), pages 163-171, October.
    13. Luis Ceballos & Alberto Naudon & Damián Romero, 2016. "Nominal term structure and term premia: evidence from Chile," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 48(29), pages 2721-2735, June.
    14. Thornton, Daniel L., 2014. "Monetary policy: Why money matters (and interest rates don’t)," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 202-213.
    15. Zbynek Stork, 2016. "Term Structure of Interest Rates: Macro-Finance Approach," EcoMod2016 9566, EcoMod.
    16. Felix Geiger, 2009. "International Interest-Rate Risk Premia in Affine Term Structure Models," Diskussionspapiere aus dem Institut für Volkswirtschaftslehre der Universität Hohenheim 316/2009, Department of Economics, University of Hohenheim, Germany.
    17. Taboga, Marco, 2007. "Structural change and the bond yield conundrum," MPRA Paper 4965, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    18. P. Byrne, Joseph & Cao, Shuo & Korobilis, Dimitris, 2015. "Term Structure Dynamics, Macro-Finance Factors and Model Uncertainty," 2007 Annual Meeting, July 29-August 1, 2007, Portland, Oregon TN 2015-71, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    19. Goliński, Adam, 2021. "Monetary policy at the zero lower bound: Information in the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 131(C).
    20. P. Byrne, Joseph & Cao, Shuo & Korobilis, Dimitris, 2015. "Term Structure Dynamics, Macro-Finance Factors and Model Uncertainty," SIRE Discussion Papers 2015-71, Scottish Institute for Research in Economics (SIRE).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Federal funds market (United States); Government securities;

    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:fip:fedlwp:2007-039. 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: Anna Oates (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/frbslus.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.