IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/jmoncb/v48y2016i2-3p253-291.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Measuring the Macroeconomic Impact of Monetary Policy at the Zero Lower Bound

Author

Listed:
  • JING CYNTHIA WU
  • FAN DORA XIA

Abstract

This paper employs an approximation that makes a nonlinear term structure model extremely tractable for analysis of an economy operating near the zero lower bound for interest rates. We show that such a model offers an excellent description of the data compared to the benchmark model and can be used to summarize the macroeconomic effects of unconventional monetary policy. Our estimates imply that the efforts by the Federal Reserve to stimulate the economy since July 2009 succeeded in making the unemployment rate in December 2013 1% lower, which is 0.13% more compared to the historical behavior of the Fed.

Suggested Citation

  • Jing Cynthia Wu & Fan Dora Xia, 2016. "Measuring the Macroeconomic Impact of Monetary Policy at the Zero Lower Bound," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 48(2-3), pages 253-291, March.
  • Handle: RePEc:wly:jmoncb:v:48:y:2016:i:2-3:p:253-291
    DOI: 10.1111/jmcb.12300
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/jmcb.12300
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/jmcb.12300?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hess Chung & Jean‐Philippe Laforte & David Reifschneider & John C. Williams, 2012. "Have We Underestimated the Likelihood and Severity of Zero Lower Bound Events?," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 44(s1), pages 47-82, February.
    2. Christiano, Lawrence J. & Eichenbaum, Martin & Evans, Charles L., 1999. "Monetary policy shocks: What have we learned and to what end?," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & M. Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 2, pages 65-148, Elsevier.
    3. Creal, Drew D. & Wu, Jing Cynthia, 2015. "Estimation of affine term structure models with spanned or unspanned stochastic volatility," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 185(1), pages 60-81.
    4. Annette Vissing-Jorgensen & Arvind Krishnamurthy, 2011. "The Effects of Quantitative Easing on Long-term Interest Rates," 2011 Meeting Papers 1447, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    5. Serena Ng & Jonathan H. Wright, 2013. "Facts and Challenges from the Great Recession for Forecasting and Macroeconomic Modeling," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 51(4), pages 1120-1154, December.
    6. Ben S. Bernanke & Jean Boivin & Piotr Eliasz, 2005. "Measuring the Effects of Monetary Policy: A Factor-Augmented Vector Autoregressive (FAVAR) Approach," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 120(1), pages 387-422.
    7. G.M. Constantinides & M. Harris & R. M. Stulz (ed.), 2013. "Handbook of the Economics of Finance," Handbook of the Economics of Finance, Elsevier, volume 2, number 2-a.
    8. Sims, Christopher A., 1992. "Interpreting the macroeconomic time series facts : The effects of monetary policy," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 36(5), pages 975-1000, June.
    9. Michael D. Bauer & Glenn D. Rudebusch, 2014. "The Signaling Channel for Federal Reserve Bond Purchases," International Journal of Central Banking, International Journal of Central Banking, vol. 10(3), pages 233-289, September.
    10. Black, Fischer, 1995. "Interest Rates as Options," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 50(5), pages 1371-1376, December.
    11. Leo Krippner, 2013. "A tractable framework for zero lower bound Gaussian term structure models," Reserve Bank of New Zealand Discussion Paper Series DP2013/02, Reserve Bank of New Zealand.
    12. Jonathan H. Wright, 2012. "What does Monetary Policy do to Long‐term Interest Rates at the Zero Lower Bound?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 122(564), pages 447-466, November.
    13. Michael D. Bauer & Glenn D. Rudebusch, 2016. "Monetary Policy Expectations at the Zero Lower Bound," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 48(7), pages 1439-1465, October.
    14. Marco J. Lombardi & Feng Zhu, 2018. "A Shadow Policy Rate to Calibrate U.S. Monetary Policy at the Zero Lower Bound," International Journal of Central Banking, International Journal of Central Banking, vol. 14(5), pages 305-346, December.
    15. Christiane Baumeister & Luca Benati, 2013. "Unconventional Monetary Policy and the Great Recession: Estimating the Macroeconomic Effects of a Spread Compression at the Zero Lower Bound," International Journal of Central Banking, International Journal of Central Banking, vol. 9(2), pages 165-212, June.
    16. Arvind Krishnamurthy & Annette Vissing-Jorgensen, 2011. "The Effects of Quantitative Easing on Interest Rates: Channels and Implications for Policy," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 42(2 (Fall)), pages 215-287.
    17. Scott Joslin & Kenneth J. Singleton & Haoxiang Zhu, 2011. "A New Perspective on Gaussian Dynamic Term Structure Models," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 24(3), pages 926-970.
    18. D’Amico, Stefania & King, Thomas B., 2013. "Flow and stock effects of large-scale treasury purchases: Evidence on the importance of local supply," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 108(2), pages 425-448.
    19. Michael D. Bauer & Glenn D. Rudebusch & Jing Cynthia Wu, 2012. "Correcting Estimation Bias in Dynamic Term Structure Models," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 30(3), pages 454-467, April.
    20. Refet S. Gürkaynak & Jonathan H. Wright, 2012. "Macroeconomics and the Term Structure," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 50(2), pages 331-367, June.
    21. James D. Hamilton & Jing Cynthia Wu, 2012. "The Effectiveness of Alternative Monetary Policy Tools in a Zero Lower Bound Environment," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 44(s1), pages 3-46, February.
    22. Gauti B. Eggertsson & Michael Woodford, 2003. "The Zero Bound on Interest Rates and Optimal Monetary Policy," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 34(1), pages 139-235.
    23. G.M. Constantinides & M. Harris & R. M. Stulz (ed.), 2013. "Handbook of the Economics of Finance," Handbook of the Economics of Finance, Elsevier, volume 2, number 2-b.
    24. Gregory R. Duffee, 2002. "Term Premia and Interest Rate Forecasts in Affine Models," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 57(1), pages 405-443, February.
    25. Kim, Don H. & Singleton, Kenneth J., 2012. "Term structure models and the zero bound: An empirical investigation of Japanese yields," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 170(1), pages 32-49.
    26. Leo Krippner, 2011. "Modifying Gaussian term structure models when interest rates are near the zero lower bound," CAMA Working Papers 2011-36, Centre for Applied Macroeconomic Analysis, Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University.
    27. Jonathan H. Wright, 2011. "Term Premia and Inflation Uncertainty: Empirical Evidence from an International Panel Dataset," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(4), pages 1514-1534, June.
    28. Hibiki Ichiue & Yoichi Ueno, 2013. "Estimating Term Premia at the Zero Bound: An Analysis of Japanese, US, and UK Yields," Bank of Japan Working Paper Series 13-E-8, Bank of Japan.
    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. Jing Cynthia Wu & Fan Dora Xia, 2020. "Negative interest rate policy and the yield curve," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 35(6), pages 653-672, September.
    2. Rossi, Barbara, 2019. "Identifying and Estimating the Effects of Unconventional Monetary Policy: How to Do It And What Have We Learned?," CEPR Discussion Papers 14064, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    3. Barbara Rossi, 2018. "Identifying and estimating the effects of unconventional monetary policy in the data: How to do It and what have we learned?," Economics Working Papers 1641, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, revised Jul 2020.
    4. De Rezende, Rafael B. & Ristiniemi, Annukka, 2023. "A shadow rate without a lower bound constraint," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 146(C).
    5. Stijn Claessens & M Ayhan Kose, 2018. "Frontiers of macrofinancial linkages," BIS Papers, Bank for International Settlements, number 95.
    6. Margaux MacDonald & Michał Ksawery Popiel, 2020. "Unconventional Monetary Policy in a Small Open Economy," Open Economies Review, Springer, vol. 31(5), pages 1061-1115, November.
    7. Michael D. Bauer & Glenn D. Rudebusch, 2016. "Monetary Policy Expectations at the Zero Lower Bound," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 48(7), pages 1439-1465, October.
    8. Guidolin, Massimo & Orlov, Alexei G. & Pedio, Manuela, 2017. "The impact of monetary policy on corporate bonds under regime shifts," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 176-202.
    9. Etienne Vaccaro-Grange, 2019. "Quantitative Easing and the Term Premium as a Monetary Policy Instrument," Working Papers halshs-02359503, HAL.
    10. Stefański, Maciej, 2022. "Macroeconomic effects and transmission channels of quantitative easing," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 114(C).
    11. Bailey, Andrew & Bridges, Jonathan & Harrison, Richard & Jones, Josh & Mankodi, Aakash, 2020. "The central bank balance sheet as a policy tool: past, present and future," Bank of England working papers 899, Bank of England.
    12. Christensen, Jens H.E. & Spiegel, Mark M., 2022. "Monetary reforms and inflation expectations in Japan: Evidence from inflation-indexed bonds," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 231(2), pages 410-431.
    13. Claudio Borio & Anna Zabai, 2018. "Unconventional monetary policies: a re-appraisal," Chapters, in: Peter Conti-Brown & Rosa M. Lastra (ed.), Research Handbook on Central Banking, chapter 20, pages 398-444, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    14. Bauer, Michael D. & Neely, Christopher J., 2014. "International channels of the Fed's unconventional monetary policy," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 24-46.
    15. Monfort, Alain & Pegoraro, Fulvio & Renne, Jean-Paul & Roussellet, Guillaume, 2017. "Staying at zero with affine processes: An application to term structure modelling," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 201(2), pages 348-366.
    16. Aysun, Uluc & Jeon, Kiyoung & Kabukcuoglu, Zeynep, 2018. "Is the credit channel alive? Firm-level evidence on the sensitivity of borrowing spreads to monetary policy," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 305-319.
    17. Tsz-Kin Chung & Cho-Hoi Hui & Ka-Fai Li, 2015. "Term-Structure Modelling at the Zero Lower Bound: Implications for Estimating the Term Premium," Working Papers 212015, Hong Kong Institute for Monetary Research.
    18. Zhou, Siwen, 2018. "Measuring the Signaling Effect of the ECB’s Asset Purchase Programme at the Effective Lower Bound," MPRA Paper 87084, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    19. Abdoulaye Millogo, 2020. "Hysteresis Effects and Macroeconomics Gains from Unconventional Monetary Policies Stabilization," Cahiers de recherche 20-12, Departement d'économique de l'École de gestion à l'Université de Sherbrooke.
    20. Hibiki Ichiue & Yoichi Ueno, 2018. "A Survey-based Shadow Rate and Unconventional Monetary Policy Effects," IMES Discussion Paper Series 18-E-05, Institute for Monetary and Economic Studies, Bank of Japan.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • E43 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Interest Rates: Determination, Term Structure, and Effects
    • E44 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Financial Markets and the Macroeconomy
    • 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
    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates

    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:wly:jmoncb:v:48:y:2016:i:2-3:p:253-291. 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0022-2879 .

    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.