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Perceptions about Monetary Policy

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Abstract

We estimate perceptions about the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy rule from panel data on professional forecasts of interest rates and macroeconomic conditions. The perceived dependence of the federal funds rate on economic conditions varies substantially over time, including over the monetary policy cycle. Forecasters update their perceptions about the Fed’s policy rule in response to monetary policy actions, measured by high-frequency interest rate surprises, suggesting that they have imperfect information about this rule. Monetary policy perceptions matter for monetary transmission, as they affect the sensitivity of interest rates to macroeconomic news, term premia in long-term bonds, and the response of the stock market to monetary policy surprises. A simple learning model with forecaster heterogeneity and incomplete information about the policy rule motivates and explains our empirical findings.

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  • Michael D. Bauer & Carolin Pflueger & Adi Sunderam, 2023. "Perceptions about Monetary Policy," Working Paper Series 2023-31, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedfwp:97242
    DOI: 10.24148/wp2023-31
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    Cited by:

    1. Istrefi, Klodiana & Hack, Lukas & Meier, Matthias, 2023. "Identification of Systematic Monetary Policy," CEPR Discussion Papers 17999, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    2. Bertsch, Christoph & Hull, Isaiah & Lumsdaine, Robin L. & Zhang, Xin, 2022. "Central Bank Mandates and Monetary Policy Stances: through the Lens of Federal Reserve Speeches," Working Paper Series 417, Sveriges Riksbank (Central Bank of Sweden), revised 01 Mar 2024.
    3. Busetto, Filippo, 2024. "Asymmetric expectations of monetary policy," Bank of England working papers 1058, Bank of England.
    4. Eric Fischer & Rebecca McCaughrin & Saketh Prazad & Mark Vandergon, 2023. "Fed Transparency and Policy Expectation Errors: A Text Analysis Approach," Staff Reports 1081, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    5. Alistair Macaulay & Wenting Song, 2022. "Narrative-Driven Fluctuations in Sentiment: Evidence Linking Traditional and Social Media," Economics Series Working Papers 973, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    6. Yuliya Rychalovska & Sergey Slobodyan & Rafael Wouters, 2023. "Professional Survey Forecasts and Expectations in DSGE Models," CERGE-EI Working Papers wp766, The Center for Economic Research and Graduate Education - Economics Institute, Prague.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    FOMC; monetary policy rules; survey forecasts; beliefs;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E43 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Interest Rates: Determination, Term Structure, and Effects
    • 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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