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202 posts on "Monetary Policy"
November 21, 2016

The FRBNY DSGE Model Forecast—November 2016

This post presents the latest update of the economic forecasts generated by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s (FRBNY) dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model.

November 16, 2016

Escaping Unemployment Traps

Economic activity has remained subdued following the Great Recession. One interpretation of the listless recovery is that recessions inflict permanent damage on an economy’s productive capacity. For example, extended periods of high unemployment can lead to skill losses among workers, reducing human capital and lowering future output. This notion that temporary recessions have long-lasting consequences is often termed hysteresis. Another explanation for sluggish growth is the influential secular stagnation hypothesis, which attributes slow growth to long-term changes in the economy’s underlying structure. While these explanations are observationally similar, they have very different policy implications. In particular, if structural factors are responsible for slow growth, then there might be little monetary policy can do to reverse this trend. If instead hysteresis is to blame, then monetary policy may be able to reverse slowdowns in potential output, or even prevent them from occurring in the first place.

September 30, 2016

From the Vault: Does Forward Guidance Work?

This post takes a look at research assessing the effectiveness of forward guidance in monetary policy communications.

August 15, 2016

What Drives Forecaster Disagreement about Monetary Policy?

What can disagreement teach us about how private forecasters perceive the conduct of monetary policy? In a previous post, we showed that private forecasters disagree about both the short-term and the long-term evolution of key macroeconomic variables but that the shape of this disagreement differs across time. In contrast to their views on other macroeconomic variables, private forecasters disagree substantially about the level of the federal funds rate that will prevail in the medium to long term but very little on the rate at shorter horizons. In this post, we explore the possible explanations for what drives forecasts of the federal funds rate, especially in the longer run.

July 15, 2016

Implementing Monetary Policy Post‑Crisis: What Do We Need to Know?

Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs and the New York Fed co-sponsored a recent workshop to discuss important issues related to monetary policy implementation. The May 4 event, held at Columbia, supports the extended effort that the Federal Reserve has undertaken to evaluate potential long-run monetary policy implementation frameworks, which was announced at a Federal Open Market Committee meeting last July.

Posted at 7:00 am in Monetary Policy | Permalink
June 29, 2016

Monetary Policy Transmission before and after the Crisis

The Federal Open Market Committee implements monetary policy by raising or lowering its target for the federal funds rate, the interest rate banks charge each other for overnight loans.

June 22, 2016

The Rapidly Changing Nature of Japan’s Public Debt

Japan’s general government debt-to-GDP ratio is the highest of advanced economies, due in part to increased spending on social services for an aging population and a level of GDP that has not increased for two decades.

June 3, 2016

At the N.Y. Fed: The Transatlantic Economy: Convergence or Divergence?

On April 18, 2016, the New York Fed hosted a conference on current and future policy directions for the linked economies of Europe and the United States. “The Transatlantic Economy: Convergence or Divergence,” organized jointly with the Centre for Economic Policy Research and the European Commission, brought together U.S. and Europe-based policymakers, regulators, and academics to discuss a series of important issues: Are the economies of the euro area and the United States on a convergent or divergent path? Are financial regulatory reforms making the banking and financial structures more similar? Will this imply a convergence in macroprudential policies? Which instruments do the United States and the euro area have at their disposal to raise investment, spur productivity, and avoid secular stagnation? In this post, we summarize the principal themes and findings of the conference discussion.

June 1, 2016

Revisiting the Case for International Policy Coordination

Prompted by the U.S. financial crisis and subsequent global recession, policymakers in advanced economies slashed interest rates dramatically, hitting the zero lower bound (ZLB), and then implemented unconventional policies such as large-scale asset purchases. In emerging economies, however, the policy response was more subdued since they were less affected by the financial crisis. As a result, capital flows from advanced to emerging economies increased markedly in response to widening interest rate differentials. Some emerging economies reacted by adopting measures to slow down capital inflows, acting under the presumption that these flows were harmful. This type of policy response has reignited the debate over how to moderate international spillovers.

May 25, 2016

The Macro Effects of the Recent Swing in Financial Conditions

Credit conditions tightened considerably in the second half of 2015 and U.S. growth slowed. We estimate the extent to which tighter credit conditions last year were responsible for the slowdown using the FRBNY DSGE model. We find that growth would have slowed substantially more had the Federal Reserve not delayed liftoff in the federal funds rate.

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