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The Monetary Transmission Mechanism, Non-residential Fixed Investment and Housing

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  • Mohammed Dore
  • Roelof Makken
  • Erik Eastman

Abstract

We specify a vector autoregression (VAR) model for the U.S. for 1980–2008 to investigate the statistical causal relationships between private non-residential fixed investment, the effective Federal funds rate, personal consumption expenditures, nonfinancial corporate profits, and the nonfinancial corporate credit market debt to test the validity of macroeconomic relationships in a macro model. The VAR utilizes the Toda-Yamamote procedure to test for Granger causality. Our preliminary results show that the transmission mechanism does not work as expected; we find that fixed investment depends on the level of demand in the economy and profits but not on the interest rate. This casts doubt on the usual assumptions about how the monetary transmission mechanism is expected to work. The second part of the paper investigates the effects of the change in the monetary regime towards low and stable interest rates, a policy pursued by the U.S. Fed since the beginning of the 1990s. We find that the new monetary policy regime has the following effects: (1) our VAR model does not support the hypothesis that low interest rates lead to higher fixed nonresidential investment; (2) low interest rates led to a search for higher yields through increasing risk, and (3) they led to an increase in the demand for securitized assets, especially mortgage-backed securities, which eventually resulted in a housing bubble. The overall results therefore raise doubts about the effectiveness of low interest rates as a policy regime designed as a component of a counter-cyclical policy. Copyright International Atlantic Economic Society 2013

Suggested Citation

  • Mohammed Dore & Roelof Makken & Erik Eastman, 2013. "The Monetary Transmission Mechanism, Non-residential Fixed Investment and Housing," Atlantic Economic Journal, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 41(3), pages 215-224, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:atlecj:v:41:y:2013:i:3:p:215-224
    DOI: 10.1007/s11293-013-9371-5
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Vector autoregression; Granger causality; Monetary transmission mechanism; Nonresidential fixed investment; Interest rate plicy; Toda-Yamamoto procedure; E32; E63; C22; C54;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E32 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Business Fluctuations; Cycles
    • E63 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Comparative or Joint Analysis of Fiscal and Monetary Policy; Stabilization; Treasury Policy
    • C22 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Time-Series Models; Dynamic Quantile Regressions; Dynamic Treatment Effect Models; Diffusion Processes
    • C54 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric Modeling - - - Quantitative Policy Modeling

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