Interaction between monetary policy and stock prices: a comparison between the Caribbean and the US

Abstract

We analyse the interaction between monetary policy and stock prices in Barbados, Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago (T&T), both individually and jointly as the Caribbean countries using structural VARs, as proposed in Bjornland and Leitemo (2009). Annual and monthly frequencies are used for Barbados while, due to data availability constraints, only annual data is employed for Jamaica and T&T. First, our results show that in Barbados, with monthly (and annual) data, a monetary policy shock that increases the Treasury bill rate by 100 basis points causes stock prices to increase by 0.038% (and fall by 0.06%), while a stock price shock that increases stock prices by 1% results in an increase in the Treasury bill rate of 30 (and 190) basis points, respectively. For Jamaica, a monetary policy shock causes stock prices to fall by 0.3%, while a stock price shock that increases stock prices by 1% results in an increase in the Treasury bill rate of 400 basis points. Likewise for T&T, a shock to monetary policy causes...