11 posts on "FOMC"
November 21, 2023
The New York Fed DSGE Model Perspective on the Lagged Effect of Monetary Policy
This post uses the New York Fed DSGE model to ask the question: What would have happened to interest rates, output, and inflation had the Federal Reserve been following an average inflation targeting (AIT)-type reaction function since 2021:Q2, when inflation began to rise—as opposed to keeping the federal funds rate at the zero lower bound (ZLB) until March 2022, and then raising it aggressively thereafter? We show that actual policy was more accommodative in 2021 than implied by the AIT reaction function and then more contractionary in 2022 and beyond. On net, the lagged effect of monetary policy on the level of GDP, when measured relative to the counterfactual, has been positive throughout the forecast horizon, due to the initial boost associated with keeping the fed funds rate near zero in 2021.
May 17, 2023
Look Out for Outlook‑at‑Risk
The timely characterization of risks to the economic outlook plays an important role in both economic policy and private sector decisions. In a February 2023 Liberty Street Economics post, we introduced the concept of “Outlook-at-Risk”—that is, the downside risk to real activity and two-sided risks to inflation. Today we are launching Outlook-at-Risk as a regularly updated data product, with new readings for the conditional distributions of real GDP growth, the unemployment rate, and inflation to be published each month. In this post, we use the data on conditional distributions to investigate how two-sided risks to inflation and downside risks to real activity have evolved over the current and previous five monetary policy tightening cycles.
Posted at 10:00 am in Central Bank, Financial Markets, Forecasting, Macroeconomics, Monetary Policy | Permalink
April 7, 2023
What’s New with Corporate Leverage?
The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) started increasing rates on March 16, 2022, and after the January 31–February 1, 2023, FOMC meeting, the lower bound of the target range of the federal funds rate had reached 4.50 percent, a level last registered in November 2007. Such a rapid rates increase could pass through to higher funding costs for U.S. corporations. In this post, we examine how corporate leverage and bond market debt have evolved over the course of the current tightening cycle and compare the current experience to that during the previous three tightening cycles.
February 15, 2023
What Is “Outlook‑at‑Risk?”
Editor’s note: Since this post was first published, the y-axis label in the last chart has been corrected. February 15, 9:30 a.m.
The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) has increased the target range for the federal funds rate by 4.50 percentage points since March 16, 2022. In tightening the stance of monetary policy, the FOMC balances the risk of inflation remaining persistently high if the economy continues to run “hot” against the risk of unemployment rising as the economy cools. In this post, we review a quantitative approach to measuring the evolution of risks to real GDP growth, the unemployment rate, and inflation that is inspired by our previous work on “Vulnerable Growth.” We find that, in February, downside risks to real GDP growth and upside risks to unemployment moderated slightly, and upside risks to inflation continued to decline.
November 21, 2022
How Do Deposit Rates Respond to Monetary Policy?
When the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) wants to raise the target range for the fed funds rate, it raises the interest on reserve balances (IORB) paid to banks, the primary credit rate offered to banks, and the award rate paid to participants that invest in the overnight reverse repo (ON RRP) market to keep the fed funds rate within the target range (see prior Liberty Street Economics posts on this topic). When these rates change, market participants respond by adjusting the valuation of financial products, of which a significant category is deposits. Understanding how deposit terms adapt to changes in policy rates is important to understanding the impact of monetary policy more broadly. In this post, we evaluate the pass through of the fed funds rate to deposit rates (that is, deposit betas) over the past several interest rate cycles and discuss factors that affect deposit rates.
January 12, 2022
How the Fed Adjusts the Fed Funds Rate within Its Target Range
At its June 2021 meeting, the FOMC maintained its target range for the fed funds rate at 0 to 25 basis points, while two of the Federal Reserve’s administered rates—interest on reserve balances and the overnight reverse repo (ON RRP) facility offering rate—each were increased by 5 basis points. What do these two simultaneous decisions mean? In today’s post, we look at “technical adjustments”—a tool the Fed can deploy to keep the FOMC’s policy rate well within the target range and support smooth market functioning.
April 17, 2020
Treasury Market Liquidity during the COVID‑19 Crisis
A key objective of recent Federal Reserve policy actions is to address the deterioration in financial market functioning. The U.S. Treasury securities market, in particular, has been the subject of Fed and market participants’ concerns, and the venue for some of the Fed’s initiatives. In this post, we evaluate a basic metric of market functioning for Treasury securities—market liquidity—through the first month of the Fed’s extraordinary actions. Our particular focus is on how liquidity in March 2020 compares to that observed over the past fifteen years, a period that includes the 2007-09 financial crisis.
Posted at 12:01 pm in Balance of Payments, Banks, Central Bank, Corporate Finance, Financial Markets, Pandemic | Permalink | Comments (1)
August 14, 2015
The Monetary Policy Advice Process at the New York Fed
Research economists discuss their process for providing advice on monetary policy to the New York Fed president ahead of FOMC meetings.
Posted at 10:00 am in Monetary Policy | Permalink
September 25, 2014
Connecting “the Dots”: Disagreement in the Federal Open Market Committee
People disagree, and so do the members of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC).
October 1, 2012
Is U.S. Monetary Policy Seasonal?
Many economic time series display periodic and predictable patterns within each calendar year, generally referred to as seasonal effects.
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