IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/fip/fedlwp/1992-003.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The market's reaction to discount changes: what's behind the announcement effect?

Author

Listed:
  • Daniel L. Thornton

Abstract

Market interest rates respond to discount rate changes. What is the reason for this response. This paper investigates several competing hypotheses of why markets respond to discount rate changes. Evidence that the response is invariant to changes in the Federal Reserve's operating procedure suggests that it is purely an \"announcement effect.\" Contrary to common belief the evidence suggests that the does not depend critically on whether the discount rate change is unanticipated, because all discount rate changes appear to be largely unanticipated. Additional evidence suggests that, despite the fact that there have been instances when discount rate was used to signal a change in policy, e.g., the one percentage point increase in the discount rate in October 1979, generally speaking, discount rate changes do not appear to have \"signaled\" a change in monetary policy. This suggests that the common assertion that market interpret discount rate changes as a signal of a change in Fed policy is incorrect. It appears that changes expectations about monetary policy is not the only reason--and perhaps not the most important reason--for the market's reaction to changes in the discount rate.

Suggested Citation

  • Daniel L. Thornton, 1992. "The market's reaction to discount changes: what's behind the announcement effect?," Working Papers 1992-003, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
  • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedlwp:1992-003
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://research.stlouisfed.org/wp/more/1992-003/
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: http://research.stlouisfed.org/wp/1992/92-003.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. White, Halbert, 1980. "A Heteroskedasticity-Consistent Covariance Matrix Estimator and a Direct Test for Heteroskedasticity," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 48(4), pages 817-838, May.
    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. Dominik Schreyer, 2019. "Football spectator no-show behaviour in the German Bundesliga," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 51(45), pages 4882-4901, September.
    2. S. Arunachalam & Sridhar N. Ramaswami & Pol Herrmann & Doug Walker, 2018. "Innovation pathway to profitability: the role of entrepreneurial orientation and marketing capabilities," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 46(4), pages 744-766, July.
    3. Timothy Erickson & Toni M. Whited, 2000. "Measurement Error and the Relationship between Investment and q," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 108(5), pages 1027-1057, October.
    4. Paul W. Miller & Barry R. Chiswick, 2002. "Immigrant earnings: Language skills, linguistic concentrations and the business cycle," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 15(1), pages 31-57.
    5. Fors, Gunnar & Zejan, Mario, 1996. "Overseas R&D by Multinationals in foreign Centers of Excellence," SSE/EFI Working Paper Series in Economics and Finance 111, Stockholm School of Economics.
    6. Rodrigo M. S. Moita & Claudio Paiva, 2013. "Political Price Cycles in Regulated Industries: Theory and Evidence," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 5(1), pages 94-121, February.
    7. Evens Salies & Catherine Waddams, 2003. "Pricing structure in the deregulated UK electricity market," SciencePo Working papers Main hal-03592457, HAL.
    8. Butler, Marty & Leone, Andrew J. & Willenborg, Michael, 2004. "An empirical analysis of auditor reporting and its association with abnormal accruals," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 37(2), pages 139-165, June.
    9. Baiyegunhi, L.J.S. & Oppong, B.B., 2016. "Commercialisation of mopane worm (Imbrasia belina) in rural households in Limpopo Province, South Africa," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 141-148.
    10. MacKinnon, J G, 1989. "Heteroskedasticity-Robust Tests for Structural Change," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 14(2), pages 77-92.
    11. Fenech, Jean-Pierre & Skully, Michael & Xuguang, Han, 2014. "Franking credits and market reactions: Evidence from the Australian convertible security market," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 32(C), pages 1-19.
    12. François Desmoulins-Lebeault & Jean-François Gajewski & Luc Meunier, 2018. "Personality and Risk Aversion," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 38(1), pages 472-489.
    13. Benjamin M. Blau & Ryan J. Whitby, 2014. "Speculative Trading In Reits," Journal of Financial Research, Southern Finance Association;Southwestern Finance Association, vol. 37(1), pages 55-74, February.
    14. Bliss, Mark A. & Gul, Ferdinand A., 2012. "Political connection and leverage: Some Malaysian evidence," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 36(8), pages 2344-2350.
    15. Gu, Chen & Kurov, Alexander & Wolfe, Marketa Halova, 2018. "Relief Rallies after FOMC Announcements as a Resolution of Uncertainty," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 1-18.
    16. Bierens, H.J. & Broersma, L., 1991. "The relation between unemployment and interest rate : some international evidence," Serie Research Memoranda 0112, VU University Amsterdam, Faculty of Economics, Business Administration and Econometrics.
    17. Son K. Lam & Thomas E. DeCarlo & Ashish Sharma, 2019. "Salesperson ambidexterity in customer engagement: do customer base characteristics matter?," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 47(4), pages 659-680, July.
    18. Gruener Hans Peter & Hayo Bernd & Hefeker Carsten, 2009. "Unions, Wage Setting and Monetary Policy Uncertainty," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 9(1), pages 1-25, October.
    19. Sian Owen & Jo-Ann Suchard, 2013. "The impact of venture capital/private equity investment on the performance of IPOs in Australia," Chapters, in: Mario Levis & Silvio Vismara (ed.), Handbook of Research on IPOs, chapter 19, pages 400-420, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    20. Jongmoo Jay Choi & Hoje Jo & Jimi Kim & Moo Sung Kim, 2018. "Business Groups and Corporate Social Responsibility," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 153(4), pages 931-954, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Monetary policy - United States; Discount;

    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:fip:fedlwp:1992-003. 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: Anna Oates (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/frbslus.html .

    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.