Transmission Of German Monetary Policy In The Pre-Euro Period

A small macroeconomic model is constructed to study the transmission of the monetary policy conducted by the Deutsche Bundesbank (DBB) since the middle of the 1970s. For this purpose, quarterly, seasonally unadjusted data for the period from 1975 to 1998 are used; that is, the period until the introduction of the Euro is considered. A vector error correction model is constructed for the German monetary sector based on M3, GNP, an inflation rate, a long-term interest rate, and a short-term rate that represents the policy variable of the DBB. Moreover, import price inflation is included as an exogenous variable to capture foreign effects. An impulse response analysis highlights the effects of changes in the short-term interest rate and shows the interaction of the main variables of the monetary sector.We thank Alexander Benkwitz for helping with the computations and Massimiliano Marcellino, Paulo Rodrigues, Phillipe Andrade, Harald Uhlig, Adrian Pagan, and two anonymous referees for comments. Financial support was provided by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, Sonderforschungsbereich 373, and the European Commission under the Training and Mobility of Researchers Programme (contract No. ERBFMRXCT980213). The paper was presented at the EEA meeting and the ESEM in Venice in 2002.