IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/macdyn/v27y2023i2p532-570_11.html

The effect of central bank credibility on forward guidance in an estimated New Keynesian model

Author

Listed:
  • Cole, Stephen J.
  • Martínez-García, Enrique

Abstract

This paper examines the effectiveness of forward guidance shocks in the US. We estimate a New Keynesian model with imperfect central bank credibility and heterogeneous expectations using Bayesian methods and survey data from the Survey of Professional Forecasters (SPF). The results provide important takeaways: (1) The estimated credibility of the Fed’s forward guidance announcements is relatively high, but anticipation effects are attenuated. Accordingly, output and inflation do not respond as favorably as in the fully credible counterfactual. (2) The so-called “forward guidance puzzle” arises partly from the unrealistically large responses of macroeconomic variables to forward guidance under perfect credibility and homogeneous fully informed rational expectations, assumptions which are found to be jointly inconsistent with the observed US data. (3) Imperfect credibility provides a plausible explanation for the empirical evidence of forecasting error predictability based on forecasting disagreement found in the SPF data. Thus, we show that accounting for imperfect credibility and forecasting disagreements is important to understand the formation of expectations and the transmission mechanism of forward guidance.

Suggested Citation

  • Cole, Stephen J. & Martínez-García, Enrique, 2023. "The effect of central bank credibility on forward guidance in an estimated New Keynesian model," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 27(2), pages 532-570, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:macdyn:v:27:y:2023:i:2:p:532-570_11
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S1365100521000511/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Anthony Brassil & Christopher G Gibbs & Callum Ryan, 2025. "Boundedly Rational Expectations and the Optimality of Flexible Average Inflation Targeting," RBA Research Discussion Papers rdp2025-02, Reserve Bank of Australia.
    2. Cole, Stephen J., 2020. "The influence of learning and price-level targeting on central bank forward guidance," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    3. Martínez-García, Enrique, 2021. "Get the lowdown: The international side of the fall in the U.S. natural rate of interest," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 100(C).
    4. Svec, Justin & Tortorice, Daniel L., 2025. "Asserting independence: Optimal monetary policy when the central bank and political authority disagree," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D84 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Expectations; Speculations
    • E30 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - General (includes Measurement and Data)
    • E50 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - General
    • 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
    • E60 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - General

    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:cup:macdyn:v:27:y:2023:i:2:p:532-570_11. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Kirk Stebbing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cambridge.org/mdy .

    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.