IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ube/dpvwib/dp2210.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

A New Approach to Estimating the Natural Rate of Interest

Author

Listed:
  • Luca Benati

Abstract

Building upon the insight that M1 velocity is the permanent component of nominal interest rates see Benati (2020) I propose a novel, and straightforward approach to estimating the natural rate of interest, which is conceptually related to Cochrane s (1994a) proposal to estimate the permanent component of GNP by exploiting the informational content of consumption. Under monetary regimes (such as inflation-targeting) making inflation I(0), the easiest way to implement the proposed approach is to (i) project the monetary policy rate onto M1 velocity thus obtaining an estimate of the nominal natural rate and then (ii) subtract from this inflation s sample average (or target), thus obtaining the real natural rate. More complex implementations based on structural VARs produce very similar estimates. Compared to existing approaches, the one proposed herein presents two key advantages: (1) under regimes making inflation I(0), M1 velocity is equal, up to a linear transformation, to the real natural rate, so that the natural rate is, in fact, observed; and (2) based on a high-frequency estimate of nominal GDP, the natural rate can be computed at the monthy or even weekly frequency. In the U.S., Euro area, and Canada the natural rate dropped sharply in the months following the collapse of Lehman Brothers. Likewise, the 1929 stock market crash was followed in the U.S. by a dramatic decrease in the natural rate.

Suggested Citation

  • Luca Benati, 2022. "A New Approach to Estimating the Natural Rate of Interest," Diskussionsschriften dp2210, Universitaet Bern, Departement Volkswirtschaft.
    • Handle: RePEc:ube:dpvwib:dp2210
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://repec.vwiit.ch/dp/dp2210.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lawrence H. Summers, 1991. "Panel discussion: price stability ; How should long-term monetary policy be determined?," Proceedings, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, pages 625-631.
    2. Bruce E. Hansen, 1999. "The Grid Bootstrap And The Autoregressive Model," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 81(4), pages 594-607, November.
    3. Lawrence J. Christiano & Terry J. Fitzgerald, 2003. "The Band Pass Filter," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 44(2), pages 435-465, May.
    4. Thomas Laubach & John C. Williams, 2003. "Measuring the Natural Rate of Interest," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 85(4), pages 1063-1070, November.
    5. Jushan Bai & Pierre Perron, 1998. "Estimating and Testing Linear Models with Multiple Structural Changes," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 66(1), pages 47-78, January.
    6. John B. Taylor, 2007. "Housing and monetary policy," Proceedings - Economic Policy Symposium - Jackson Hole, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, pages 463-476.
    7. Jushan Bai & Pierre Perron, 2003. "Computation and analysis of multiple structural change models," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 18(1), pages 1-22.
    8. Summers, Lawrence, 1991. "How Should Long-Term Monetary Policy Be Determined? Panel Discussion," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 23(3), pages 625-631, August.
    9. Allan H. Meltzer, 1963. "The Demand for Money: The Evidence from the Time Series," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 71(3), pages 219-219.
    10. Henrik Hansen & Søren Johansen, 1999. "Some tests for parameter constancy in cointegrated VAR-models," Econometrics Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 2(2), pages 306-333.
    11. Harvey, A C & Jaeger, A, 1993. "Detrending, Stylized Facts and the Business Cycle," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 8(3), pages 231-247, July-Sept.
    12. Perron, Pierre, 1989. "The Great Crash, the Oil Price Shock, and the Unit Root Hypothesis," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 57(6), pages 1361-1401, November.
    13. Perron, Pierre & Yabu, Tomoyoshi, 2009. "Testing for Shifts in Trend With an Integrated or Stationary Noise Component," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 27(3), pages 369-396.
    14. Miguel Sidrauski, 1967. "Inflation and Economic Growth," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 75(6), pages 796-796.
    15. Giuseppe Cavaliere & Anders Rahbek & A. M. Robert Taylor, 2012. "Bootstrap Determination of the Co‐Integration Rank in Vector Autoregressive Models," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 80(4), pages 1721-1740, July.
    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. Luca Benati & Juan-Pablo Nicolini, 2019. "The Welfare Costs of Inflation," Diskussionsschriften dp1911, Universitaet Bern, Departement Volkswirtschaft.
    2. Benati, Luca, 2020. "Money velocity and the natural rate of interest," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 116(C), pages 117-134.
    3. Alfred A. Haug & Ian P. King, 2011. "Empirical Evidence on Inflation and Unemployment in the Long Run," Department of Economics - Working Papers Series 1128, The University of Melbourne.
    4. Benati, Luca, 2014. "Do TFP and the relative price of investment share a common I(1) component?," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 239-261.
    5. Luca Benati & Robert E. Lucas & Juan Pablo Nicolini & Warren E. Weber, 2017. "Online Appendix for: International Evidence on Long-Run Money Demand," Working Papers 738, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
    6. Haug, Alfred A. & King, Ian, 2014. "In the long run, US unemployment follows inflation like a faithful dog," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 42-52.
    7. Matteo Mogliani, 2010. "Residual-based tests for cointegration and multiple deterministic structural breaks: A Monte Carlo study," Working Papers halshs-00564897, HAL.
    8. Benati, Luca, 2007. "Drift and breaks in labor productivity," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 31(8), pages 2847-2877, August.
    9. Kim, Dukpa & Oka, Tatsushi & Estrada, Francisco & Perron, Pierre, 2020. "Inference related to common breaks in a multivariate system with joined segmented trends with applications to global and hemispheric temperatures," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 214(1), pages 130-152.
    10. Benati, Luca & Lucas, Robert E. & Nicolini, Juan Pablo & Weber, Warren, 2021. "International evidence on long-run money demand," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 43-63.
    11. Mohitosh Kejriwal & Xuewen Yu & Pierre Perron, 2020. "Bootstrap procedures for detecting multiple persistence shifts in heteroskedastic time series," Journal of Time Series Analysis, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 41(5), pages 676-690, September.
    12. Tatsuma Wada & Pierre Perron, 2006. "State Space Model with Mixtures of Normals: Specifications and Applications to International Data," Boston University - Department of Economics - Working Papers Series WP2006-029, Boston University - Department of Economics.
    13. Baffigi, Alberto & Bontempi, Maria Elena & Felice, Emanuele & Golinelli, Roberto, 2015. "The changing relationship between inflation and the economic cycle in Italy: 1861–2012," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 53-70.
    14. Seong Yeon Chang & Pierre Perron, 2016. "Inference on a Structural Break in Trend with Fractionally Integrated Errors," Journal of Time Series Analysis, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 37(4), pages 555-574, July.
    15. Christopher J. Neely & David E. Rapach, 2008. "Real interest rate persistence: evidence and implications," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, vol. 90(Nov), pages 609-642.
    16. Nikolsko-Rzhevskyy, Alex & Papell, David H. & Prodan, Ruxandra, 2019. "The Taylor principles," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    17. Giorgio Canarella & Rangan Gupta & Stephen M. Miller & Stephen K. Pollard, 2019. "Unemployment rate hysteresis and the great recession: exploring the metropolitan evidence," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 56(1), pages 61-79, January.
    18. António Afonso & João Jalles, 2014. "A longer-run perspective on fiscal sustainability," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 41(4), pages 821-847, November.
    19. Fang‐Shuo Chang & Shiu‐Sheng Chen & Po‐Yuan Wang, 2020. "Politics and the UK's monetary policy," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 67(5), pages 486-522, November.
    20. Josefine Quast & Maik H. Wolters, 2022. "Reliable Real-Time Output Gap Estimates Based on a Modified Hamilton Filter," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 40(1), pages 152-168, January.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Natural rate of interest; money velocity; structural VARs; unit roots; cointegration;
    All these keywords.

    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:ube:dpvwib:dp2210. 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: Franz Koelliker (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vwibech.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.