IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/fip/fedker/00051.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

How Do FOMC Projections Affect Policy Uncertainty?

Author

Listed:
  • Brent Bundick
  • Trenton Herriford

Abstract

In January 2012, the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) began publicly releasing its participants? projections for the future value of the federal funds rate. The former FOMC Chair Ben Bernanke stated that these releases help the public form policy expectations. However, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco President John C. Williams noted that the range of the funds rate forecast conveyed disagreement and uncertainty. These projections may be conflicting in nature, and thus may not lower public uncertainty. Bundick and Herriford seek to answer the question: do these projections decrease or increase uncertainty about future policy? To answer this question, the authors measure how uncertainty about future interest rates changed after the FOMC began releasing its participants? projections for the appropriate federal funds rate. The authors found that the overall uncertainty about future interest rates decreased after FOMC began releasing its participants? interest rate projections. However, the authors found that public uncertainty is correlated with disagreement across participants? projections. In sum, the findings provide empirical support for the claims of Bernanke and Williams.

Suggested Citation

  • Brent Bundick & Trenton Herriford, 2017. "How Do FOMC Projections Affect Policy Uncertainty?," Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, issue Q II, pages 5-22.
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedker:00051
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.kansascityfed.org/documents/462/2017-How%20Do%20FOMC%20Projections%20Affect%20Policy%20Uncertainty%3F.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. 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.
    2. John Y. Campbell, 2008. "Asset Prices and Monetary Policy," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number camp06-1, March.
    3. George A. Kahn & Andrew Palmer, 2016. "Monetary Policy at the Zero Lower Bound: Revelations from the FOMC's Summary of Economic Projections," Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, issue Q I, pages 5-37.
    4. Swanson, Eric T., 2006. "Have Increases in Federal Reserve Transparency Improved Private Sector Interest Rate Forecasts?," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 38(3), pages 791-819, April.
    5. George A. Kahn & Andrew Palmer, 2016. "Monetary Policy at the Zero Lower Bound: Revelations from the Summary of Economic Projections," Macro Bulletin, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, pages 1-4, April.
    6. Campbell, John Y. (ed.), 2008. "Asset Prices and Monetary Policy," National Bureau of Economic Research Books, University of Chicago Press, number 9780226092119, 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. Lakdawala, Aeimit & Bauer, Michael & Mueller, Philippe, 2019. "Market-Based Monetary Policy Uncertainty," Working Papers 2019-2, Michigan State University, Department of Economics.
    2. Binder, Carola Conces, 2019. "Comment on “Central Bank announcements: Big news for little people?” by Michael Lamla and Dmitri Vinogradov," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 39-44.
    3. Brent Bundick & Andrew Lee Smith, 2020. "Policymakers Have Options for Additional Accommodation: Forward Guidance and Yield Curve Control," Economic Bulletin, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, pages 1-5, July.
    4. Carola Conces Binder, 2021. "Central Bank Communication and Disagreement about the Natural Rate Hypothesis," International Journal of Central Banking, International Journal of Central Banking, vol. 17(2), pages 81-123, June.

    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. 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.
    2. Bofinger, Peter & Schnabel, Isabel & Feld, Lars P. & Schmidt, Christoph M. & Wieland, Volker, 2017. "Für eine zukunftsorientierte Wirtschaftspolitik. Jahresgutachten 2017/18," Annual Economic Reports / Jahresgutachten, German Council of Economic Experts / Sachverständigenrat zur Begutachtung der gesamtwirtschaftlichen Entwicklung, volume 127, number 201718.
    3. 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.
    4. van der Cruijsen, C.A.B., 2008. "The economic impact of central bank transparency," Other publications TiSEM 86c1ba91-1952-45b4-adac-8, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    5. Nadav Ben Zeev & Christopher Gunn & Hashmat Khan, 2020. "Monetary News Shocks," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 52(7), pages 1793-1820, October.
    6. Nikolay Gospodinov & Ibrahim Jamali, 2018. "Monetary policy uncertainty, positions of traders and changes in commodity futures prices," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 24(2), pages 239-260, March.
    7. Hallett, Andrew Hughes & Acocella, Nicola & Di Bartolomeo, Giovanni, 2010. "Policy games, policy neutrality and Tinbergen controllability under rational expectations," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 55-67, March.
    8. Klaus Schmidt-Hebbel & Carl E. Walsh, 2009. "Monetary Policy under Uncertainty and Learning: An Overview," Central Banking, Analysis, and Economic Policies Book Series, in: Klaus Schmidt-Hebbel & Carl E. Walsh & Norman Loayza (Series Editor) & Klaus Schmidt-Hebbel (Series (ed.),Monetary Policy under Uncertainty and Learning, edition 1, volume 13, chapter 1, pages 001-025, Central Bank of Chile.
    9. Williams, John C., 2013. "A defense of moderation in monetary policy," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 38(PB), pages 137-150.
    10. Günes Kamber & Özer Karagedikli & Christie Smith, 2015. "Applying an Inflation-Targeting Lens to Macroprodential Policy "Institutions"," International Journal of Central Banking, International Journal of Central Banking, vol. 11(4), pages 395-429, September.
    11. Hughes Hallett Andrew & Di Bartolomeo Giovanni & Acocella Nicola, 2013. "Central banks and economic policy after the crisis: What have we learned?," wp.comunite 0106, Department of Communication, University of Teramo.
    12. Jung, Alexander & El-Shagi, Makram & Giesen, Sebastian, 2014. "Does the federal reserve staff still beat private forecasters?," Working Paper Series 1635, European Central Bank.
    13. Paul Hubert & Fabien Labondance, 2018. "The Effect of ECB Forward Guidance on the Term Structure of Interest Rates," International Journal of Central Banking, International Journal of Central Banking, vol. 14(5), pages 193-222, December.
    14. 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.
    15. Delis, Manthos & Hong, Sizhe & Paltalidis, Nikos & Philip, Dennis, 2020. "Forward Guidance and Corporate Lending," MPRA Paper 98159, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    16. Kurt G. Lunsford, 2020. "Policy Language and Information Effects in the Early Days of Federal Reserve Forward Guidance," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 110(9), pages 2899-2934, September.
    17. Evgenidis, Anastasios & Tsagkanos, Athanasios & Siriopoulos, Costas, 2017. "Towards an asymmetric long run equilibrium between stock market uncertainty and the yield spread. A threshold vector error correction approach," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 39(PA), pages 267-279.
    18. John C. Williams, 2010. "The Zero Lower Bound: Lessons from the Past Decade," NBER International Seminar on Macroeconomics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 6(1), pages 367-375.
    19. Man-Keung Tang & Mr. Xiangrong Yu, 2011. "Communication of Central Bank Thinking and Inflation Dynamics," IMF Working Papers 2011/209, International Monetary Fund.
    20. Stenfors, Alexis, 2014. "LIBOR deception and central bank forward (mis-)guidance: Evidence from Norway during 2007–2011," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 32(C), pages 452-472.

    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:fedker:00051. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: . General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/frbkcus.html .

    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: Lu Dayrit (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/frbkcus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.