IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ijc/ijcjou/y2025q1a3.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Estimates of the Natural Rate of Interest Consistent with a Supply-Side Structure and a Monetary Policy Rule for the U.S. Economy

Author

Listed:
  • Manuel González-Astudillo

    (Federal Reserve Board and Escuela Superior Politécnica del Litoral (ESPOL))

  • Jean-Philippe Laforte

    (Federal Reserve Board)

Abstract

We estimate the natural rate of interest (r∗) using a semistructural model of the U.S. economy that jointly characterizes the trend and cyclical factors of key macroeconomic variables such as output, the unemployment rate, inflation, and short- and long-term interest rates. We specify a monetary policy rule and a 10-year Treasury yield equation to exploit the information provided by both interest rates to infer r∗. However, the use of a monetary policy rule with a sample that spans the Great Recession and its aftermath poses a challenge because of the effective lower bound. We devise a Bayesian estimation technique that incorporates a Tobit-like specification to deal with the censoring problem. We compare and validate our model specifications using pseudo-out-of-sample forecasting exercises. Our results show that the smoothed value of r∗ declined sharply around the Great Recession, eventually falling below zero, and remained negative through early 2020. Our results also indicate that obviating the censoring would imply higher estimates of r∗ than otherwise. We also extend our results to the COVID-19 pandemic period, introducing stochastic volatility in the model and dealing with the massive swings in the data, to find that our estimate of r∗ is slightly below 1 percent in early 2023.

Suggested Citation

  • Manuel González-Astudillo & Jean-Philippe Laforte, 2025. "Estimates of the Natural Rate of Interest Consistent with a Supply-Side Structure and a Monetary Policy Rule for the U.S. Economy," International Journal of Central Banking, International Journal of Central Banking, vol. 21(1), pages 137-199, January.
  • Handle: RePEc:ijc:ijcjou:y:2025:q:1:a:3
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.ijcb.org/journal/ijcb25q1a3.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. John M. Roberts, 2018. "An Estimate of the Long-Term Neutral Rate of Interest," FEDS Notes 2018-09-05, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    2. Frank Smets & Rafael Wouters, 2007. "Shocks and Frictions in US Business Cycles: A Bayesian DSGE Approach," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(3), pages 586-606, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Naohisa Hirakata & Kazutoshi Kan & Akihiro Kanafuji & Yosuke Kido & Yui Kishaba & Tomonori Murakoshi & Takeshi Shinohara, 2019. "The Quarterly Japanese Economic Model (Q-JEM): 2019 version," Bank of Japan Working Paper Series 19-E-7, Bank of Japan.
    2. Luca Guerrieri & Dale Henderson & Jinill Kim, 2014. "Modeling Investment‐Sector Efficiency Shocks: When Does Disaggregation Matter?," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 55(3), pages 891-917, August.
    3. Lars-H. R. Siemers, 2024. "On the Hamilton-HP Filter Controversy: Evidence from German Business Cycles," Journal of Business Cycle Research, Springer;Centre for International Research on Economic Tendency Surveys (CIRET), vol. 20(3), pages 367-409, November.
    4. Athanasios Geromichalos & Lucas Herrenbrueck, 2022. "The Liquidity-Augmented Model of Macroeconomic Aggregates: A New Monetarist DSGE Approach," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 45, pages 134-167, July.
    5. Cantelmo, Alessandro & Melina, Giovanni, 2023. "Sectoral labor mobility and optimal monetary policy," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 27(1), pages 1-26, January.
    6. Mumtaz, Haroon & Theodoridis, Konstantinos, 2017. "Common and country specific economic uncertainty," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 105(C), pages 205-216.
    7. Jang, Tae-Seok & Sacht, Stephen, 2017. "Modeling consumer confidence and its role for expectation formation: A horse race," Economics Working Papers 2017-04, Christian-Albrechts-University of Kiel, Department of Economics.
    8. Benigno, Pierpaolo & Paciello, Luigi, 2014. "Monetary policy, doubts and asset prices," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 85-98.
    9. Dubois, Loick & Sahuc, Jean-Guillaume & Vermandel, Gauthier, 2025. "A general equilibrium approach to carbon permit banking," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 129(C).
    10. Dennis, Richard, 2010. "When is discretion superior to timeless perspective policymaking?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(3), pages 266-277, April.
    11. Christoph Görtz & John D. Tsoukalas, 2013. "Sector Specific News Shocks in Aggregate and Sectoral Fluctuations," CESifo Working Paper Series 4269, CESifo.
    12. Aurelijus Dabusinskas & István Kónya & Stephen Millard, 2015. "How does labour market structure affect the response of economies to shocks?," CERS-IE WORKING PAPERS 1516, Institute of Economics, Centre for Economic and Regional Studies.
    13. Carlos Medel, 2017. "Forecasting Chilean inflation with the hybrid new keynesian Phillips curve: globalisation, combination, and accuracy," Journal Economía Chilena (The Chilean Economy), Central Bank of Chile, vol. 20(3), pages 004-050, December.
    14. Ayse Kabukcuoglu & Enrique Martínez-García, 2016. "What Helps Forecast U.S. Inflation?—Mind the Gap!," Koç University-TUSIAD Economic Research Forum Working Papers 1615, Koc University-TUSIAD Economic Research Forum.
    15. repec:zbw:bofrdp:2016_016 is not listed on IDEAS
    16. Carlstrom, Charles T. & Fuerst, Timothy S. & Paustian, Matthias, 2009. "Monetary policy shocks, Choleski identification, and DNK models," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(7), pages 1014-1021, October.
    17. Kocięcki, Andrzej & Kolasa, Marcin, 2023. "A solution to the global identification problem in DSGE models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 236(2).
    18. Elstner, Steffen & Feld, Lars P. & Schmidt, Christoph M., 2018. "The German productivity paradox: Facts and explanations," Ruhr Economic Papers 767, RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-University Bochum, TU Dortmund University, University of Duisburg-Essen.
    19. Molnárová, Zuzana & Reiter, Michael, 2022. "Technology, demand, and productivity: What an industry model tells us about business cycles," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 134(C).
    20. Hollander, Hylton & Liu, Guangling, 2016. "Credit spread variability in the U.S. business cycle: The Great Moderation versus the Great Recession," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 37-52.
    21. Karadi, Peter & Nakov, Anton, 2021. "Effectiveness and addictiveness of quantitative easing," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 1096-1117.

    More about this item

    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:ijc:ijcjou:y:2025:q:1:a:3. 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: Bank for International Settlements (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.ijcb.org/ .

    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.