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Central Banks Going Long

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  • Reis, Ricardo

Abstract

Central banks have sometimes turned their attention to long-term interest rates as a target or as a diagnosis of policy. This paper describes two historical episodes when this happened—the US in 1942-51 and the UK in the 1960s—and uses a model of inflation dynamics to evaluate monetary policies that rely on going long. It concludes that these policies for the most part fail to keep inflation under control. A complementary methodological contribution is to re-state the classic problem of monetary policy through interest-rate rules in a continuous-time setting where shocks follow diffusions in order to integrate the endogenous determination of inflation and the term structure of interest rates.

Suggested Citation

  • Reis, Ricardo, 2018. "Central Banks Going Long," CEPR Discussion Papers 12833, Centre for Economic Policy Research.
    • Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:12833
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

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    3. Grahame Johnson & Sharon Kozicki & Romanos Priftis & Lena Suchanek & Jonathan Witmer & Jing Yang, 2020. "Implementation and Effectiveness of Extended Monetary Policy Tools: Lessons from the Literature," Discussion Papers 2020-16, Bank of Canada.
    4. Caballero, Diego & Lucas, André & Schwaab, Bernd & Zhang, Xin, 2020. "Risk endogeneity at the lender/investor-of-last-resort," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 116(C), pages 283-297.

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    Keywords

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    JEL classification:

    • E31 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Price Level; Inflation; Deflation
    • 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

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