IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ime/imedps/23-e-06.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Forward Guidance Trap

Author

Listed:
  • Athanasios Orphanides

    (Professor of the Practice of Global Economics and Management at the MIT Sloan School of Management (E-mail: athanasios.orphanides@mit.edu))

Abstract

This paper examines the policy experience of the Fed, ECB and BOJ during and after the Covid-19 pandemic and draws lessons for monetary policy strategy and its communication. All three central banks provided appropriate accommodation during the pandemic but two failed to unwind this accommodation in a timely manner. The Fed and ECB guided real interest rates to inappropriately negative levels as the economy recovered from the pandemic, fueling high inflation. The policy error can be traced to decisions regarding forward guidance on policy rates that delayed lift-off while the two central banks continued to expand their balance sheets. The Fed and the ECB fell into the forward guidance trap. This could have been avoided if policy were guided by a forward-looking rule that properly adjusted the nominal interest rate with the evolution of the inflation outlook.

Suggested Citation

  • Athanasios Orphanides, 2023. "The Forward Guidance Trap," IMES Discussion Paper Series 23-E-06, Institute for Monetary and Economic Studies, Bank of Japan.
    • Handle: RePEc:ime:imedps:23-e-06
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.imes.boj.or.jp/research/papers/english/23-E-06.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Michael D. Bordo & Andrew T. Levin & Mickey D. Levy, 2020. "Incorporating Scenario Analysis into the Federal Reserve’s Policy Strategy and Communications," NBER Working Papers 27369, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Richard H. Clarida, 2023. "US Monetary Policy and the Return to Price Stability," NBER Working Papers 31520, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Carl E. Walsh, 2022. "Inflation Surges and Monetary Policy," Monetary and Economic Studies, Institute for Monetary and Economic Studies, Bank of Japan, vol. 40, pages 39-66, November.
    4. Athanasios Orphanides & Volker Wieland, 2013. "Complexity and Monetary Policy," International Journal of Central Banking, International Journal of Central Banking, vol. 9(1), pages 167-204, January.
    5. Athanasios Orphanides, 2021. "The Power of Central Bank Balance Sheets," Monetary and Economic Studies, Institute for Monetary and Economic Studies, Bank of Japan, vol. 39, pages 35-54, November.
    6. Clouse James & Henderson Dale & Orphanides Athanasios & Small David H. & Tinsley P.A., 2003. "Monetary Policy When the Nominal Short-Term Interest Rate is Zero," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 3(1), pages 1-65, September.
    7. D’Amico, Stefania & King, Thomas B., 2023. "What does anticipated monetary policy do?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 138(C), pages 123-139.
    8. Ben S. Bernanke, 2020. "The New Tools of Monetary Policy," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 110(4), pages 943-983, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Goodhead, Robert, 2024. "The economic impact of yield curve compression: Evidence from euro area forward guidance and unconventional monetary policy," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 164(C).
    2. Caballero, Julián & Gadanecz, Blaise, 2024. "Did interest rate guidance in emerging markets work?," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 149(C).
    3. de Haan, Jakob & Hoogduin, Lex, 2024. "ECB communication policies: An overview and comparison with the Federal Reserve," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 142(C).

    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. Athanasios Orphanides, 2025. "Enhancing resilience with natural growth targeting," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 91(4), pages 1420-1439, April.
    2. Athanasios Orphanides, 2021. "The Power of Central Bank Balance Sheets," Monetary and Economic Studies, Institute for Monetary and Economic Studies, Bank of Japan, vol. 39, pages 35-54, November.
    3. Siekmann, Helmut & Wieland, Volker, 2020. "The ruling of the Federal Constitutional Court concerning the public sector purchase program: A practical way forward," IMFS Working Paper Series 140, Goethe University Frankfurt, Institute for Monetary and Financial Stability (IMFS).
    4. Kanda, Joana F. & Pinto, João M. & Silva, Beatriz P., 2025. "The ECB’s APP’s impact on non-financial firms’ cost of borrowing and debt choice," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    5. Bofinger, Peter & Schnabel, Isabel & Feld, Lars P. & Schmidt, Christoph M. & Wieland, Volker, 2014. "Mehr Vertrauen in Marktprozesse. Jahresgutachten 2014/15 [More confidence in market processes. Annual Report 2014/15]," Annual Economic Reports / Jahresgutachten, German Council of Economic Experts / Sachverständigenrat zur Begutachtung der gesamtwirtschaftlichen Entwicklung, volume 127, number 201415.
    6. Bofinger, Peter & Feld, Lars P. & Schmidt, Christoph M. & Schnabel, Isabel & Wieland, Volker, 2018. "Vor wichtigen wirtschaftspolitischen Weichenstellungen. Jahresgutachten 2018/19 [Setting the Right Course for Economic Policy. Annual Report 2018/19]," Annual Economic Reports / Jahresgutachten, German Council of Economic Experts / Sachverständigenrat zur Begutachtung der gesamtwirtschaftlichen Entwicklung, volume 127, number 201819.
    7. Stefania D'Amico & Corey Feldman, 2024. "Balance Sheet Policy Uncertainty and Its Aggregate Implications," Working Paper Series WP 2024-14, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
    8. Ben S. Bernanke & Vincent R. Reinhart & Brian P. Sack, 2004. "Monetary Policy Alternatives at the Zero Bound: An Empirical Assessment," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 35(2), pages 1-100.
    9. Koijen, Ralph S.J. & Koulischer, François & Nguyen, Benoît & Yogo, Motohiro, 2021. "Inspecting the mechanism of quantitative easing in the euro area," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 140(1), pages 1-20.
    10. Francesco Casalena, 2024. "Back to normal? Assessing the Effects of the Federal Reserve's Quantitative Tightening," IHEID Working Papers 14-2024, Economics Section, The Graduate Institute of International Studies.
    11. Lars P Feld & Volker Wieland, 2021. "The German Federal Constitutional Court Ruling and the European Central Bank’s Strategy," Journal of Financial Regulation, Oxford University Press, vol. 7(2), pages 217-253.
    12. Benchimol, Jonathan & Bounader, Lahcen, 2023. "Optimal monetary policy under bounded rationality," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 67, pages 1-25.
    13. Chikashi Tsuji, 2016. "Did the expectations channel work? Evidence from quantitative easing in Japan, 2001–06," Cogent Economics & Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 4(1), pages 1210996-121, December.
    14. Shu Wu & Shigeru Iwata, 2004. "Estimating Monetary Policy Effects When Interest Rates are Bounded at Zero," Econometric Society 2004 Far Eastern Meetings 478, Econometric Society.
    15. Pablo Guerrón-Quintana & Alexey Khazanov & Molin Zhong, 2023. "Financial and Macroeconomic Data Through the Lens of a Nonlinear Dynamic Factor Model," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2023-027, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    16. Hunt, Benjamin & Laxton, Douglas, 2004. "The Zero Interest Rate Floor (ZIF) and its Implications for Monetary Policy in Japan," National Institute Economic Review, National Institute of Economic and Social Research, vol. 187, pages 76-92, January.
    17. Willem H. Buiter, 2003. "Deflation: Prevention and Cure," NBER Working Papers 9623, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. Ben S. Bernanke & Vincent R. Reinhart, 2004. "Conducting Monetary Policy at Very Low Short-Term Interest Rates," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(2), pages 85-90, May.
    19. Kotaro Ishi & Mr. Kenji Fujita & Mr. Mark R. Stone, 2011. "Should Unconventional Balance Sheet Policies Be Added to the Central Bank toolkit? a Review of the Experience so Far," IMF Working Papers 2011/145, International Monetary Fund.
    20. Bhar, Ramaprasad & Malliaris, A.G., 2021. "Modeling U.S. monetary policy during the global financial crisis and lessons for Covid-19," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 43(1), pages 15-33.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • 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
    • E61 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Policy Objectives; Policy Designs and Consistency; Policy Coordination

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:ime:imedps:23-e-06. 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: Kinken (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/imegvjp.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.