Central Bank Policy Rates Research Articles

Effects of the Expenditure Ceiling on public investment and the central bank policy rate: evaluation via synthetic control

Resumo Tendo vigorado entre 2017 e 2022, o Teto de Gastos marcou um importante período da política fiscal brasileira e gerou uma série de debates acerca de seus efeitos sobre variáveis macroeconômicas. Usando a metodologia do Controle Sintético e dados anuais do Banco Mundial e do FMI, este artigo avalia o seu impacto sobre a taxa básica de juros (Selic) entre 2017 e 2021 e sobre a taxa real de investimento público entre 2017 e 2019. Os resultados indicam que a implementação do Teto coincidiu com uma queda na Selic não observada no contrafactual, estando em linha com resultados anteriores relacionados às taxas de juros longas. A análise do investimento público, por sua vez, revela que não é possível isolar o efeito do Teto, haja vista a queda de investimentos governamentais durante a recessão de 2015-2016.

Monetary policy and wealth inequality

AbstractThis thesis examines how monetary policy shocks affect wealth inequality in Australia. I analyse how a monetary policy shock, through asset price responses, affects household balance sheets and wealth inequality measures. I find that contractionary monetary policy reduces the wealth gap, but also disproportionately increases the wealth share of the most affluent Australians. This is driven largely by the response of house prices to an increase in the central bank's policy rate. I use a novel methodology to overcome the data limitations that usually impede studies of wealth inequality, and I produce results with implications for central bankers and policymakers. My results are robust to numerous lag specifications, modelling techniques and identification strategies.

Macroeconomics Determinants of Interest Rate Spreads Among Commercial Banks in Kenya

The determination of interest rate spread in commercial banks is influenced by various macroeconomic variables, market microstructure features and the policy environment. However, studies on factors that contribute to the interest rate spreads among commercial banks in Kenya have produced mixed results that calls for further research. This study aimed to assess the determinants of interest rate spread in commercial banks in Kenya. Specifically, the study sought to establish the effect of inflation rate, domestic borrowing, credit risk and exchange rate risk on the interest rate spreads among commercial banks in Kenya. The study was anchored on fisher hypothesis, classical theory of interest and loanable fund theories. Explanatory research design was adopted to establish the causal relationship between the study’s variables. Secondary data of the study for the period between 1970 -2022 was extracted from annual financial statements of commercial banks targeted by the study and Central bank of Kenya annual reports. Data was analyzed through descriptive and inferential statistics. The study adopted the regression model to obtain results. Based on the regression results, the study found that domestic borrowing had a significant positive effect on interest rate spreads among commercial banks in Kenya. Additionally, the study found that inflation rate, credit risk and exchange rate risk had a significant positive effect on interest rate spreads among commercial banks in Kenya. The study concluded that macroeconomic variables such as inflation rate, domestic borrowing, credit risk and exchange rate risks are key determinants of interest rate spread among commercial banks in Kenya. The study made the following recommendations to regulators and policy makers. First, ensure that the central bank's monetary policy actions effectively influence interest rates throughout the banking system and also Implement mechanisms to improve the transmission of changes in the central bank's policy rates to commercial banks' lending and deposit rates. Secondly, establish a framework for monitoring key macroeconomic indicators such as inflation, economic growth, exchange rates, and fiscal policies to identify potential factors impacting interest rate spreads and use the monitoring results to formulate timely and appropriate policy responses. The study recommends that future studies should conduct studies across different countries which could provide a more comprehensive understanding of the subject matter.

Interactive influence of house prices and the repo rate on household debt in South Africa

<p><big>The recent interest rate policy decisions of the South African Reserve Bank have been criticized significantly by left-leaning political parties and civic society organisations for being anti-poor, anti-labour, and pro-capital because of their implications for household debt. Existing literature has established that interest rates and house prices are insignificant determinants of household debt dynamics in South Africa. Taking advantage of additional data for the period 2013-2022, and contrary to the previous studies, the paper maintains that house prices and the central bank policy rate play a crucial role in household debt dynamics. Applying a Markov Switching regression to quarterly data for the period 1981Q1 to 2022Q1, the paper finds that house prices and the policy rate have a significant influence on household debt dynamics. It establishes the existence of a ‘house price boom, low policy rate burden’ regime and a ‘high policy rate burden, low house price’ regime. The coexistence of the ‘house price boom’ and the ‘low policy rate’ explains the debt euphoria characterised by significant household leveraging.</big></p>

TERM STRUCTURE MODELING OF SOFR: EVALUATING THE IMPORTANCE OF SCHEDULED JUMPS

As interest rate benchmarks move from LIBOR to overnight risk-free rates (RFR), it has become increasingly important for models to accurately capture the interest rate dynamics at the overnight tenor. Overnight rates closely track central bank policy rate decisions resulting, in highly discontinuous dynamics around scheduled meeting dates. In this paper, we construct a dynamic term structure model, which accounts for the discontinuous short-rate dynamics. We show that the model is able to jointly fit the overnight US policy rate, secured overnight financing rate (SOFR) and SOFR futures rates through the recent Fed hiking cycle. Comparing our model with a standard continuous time-homogeneous short-rate model, we find several indications that our model avoids the clear misspecification of the continuous model, in particular with regard to the short-rate dynamics around meeting dates of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC). Thiseffect begins to disappear as the term of the rates under consideration is increased, suggesting that diffusive dynamics are a reasonably accurate reflection of the evolution of market expectations embodied in longer-term interest rates.

Impact of Monetary Policy Rate on Conventional and Islamic Banking

Purpose: This study examine the role of banking portfolios based on religious philosophy i.e. Islamic banks in comparison of conventional banks of Pakistan to determine whether both of the portfolios of Islamic and conventional banks absorbs monetary policy shocks on the basis of bank specific religious philosophy.
 Methodology: The study collected quarterly data from 2005 to 2018 from the official sources of the central bank of Pakistan i.e. State Bank of Pakistan and tested by using econometric techniques. The variables include proxy of central bank Policy Rate, Gross Domestic Product and banking portfolios.
 Findings: The outcome of the study reveals that Islamic philosophy of banks do not contribute significantly in varying effects of monetary policy.
 Unique Contribution to Theory, Practice and Policy: The government may develop a dual monetary system and introduce pricing mechanisms for Islamic banks separately by introducing sharia-compliant monetary policy instruments to enhance Islamic share in the overall financial plan. Further, a limited number of Sharia advisors who are simultaneously equipped with financial knowledge in another handicap in sharia-compliant product development.

Financial inclusion and monetary policy effectiveness in a monetary union: Heterogenous panel approach

AbstractWe examine the nexus between financial inclusion and inflation targeting monetary policy effectiveness in West African Economic and Monetary Union countries by employing a heterogenous panel approach that enables us to delineate the responses to policy innovations related to idiosyncratic country‐specific shocks, common shocks, and composite shocks. We find that these shocks significantly affect inflation and financial inclusion but with varying magnitudes, signs, time of responses, and persistence. We further demonstrate that inflation targeting monetary policy is differently associated with the various dimensions and indicators of financial inclusion. Overall financial inclusion shocks temporarily increase inflation; deposit shocks reduce inflation; and credit shocks increase inflation. Central bank policy rate differently responds across time horizon to overall financial inclusion shocks; and it increases due to credit shocks highlighting that the monetary authority responds to credit shocks by implementing contractionary monetary policy. Our results highlight that monetary policy aimed at promoting inclusive financial services and responses of monetary policy to financial inclusion should be specific to the dimensions of financial inclusion.

Inflation targeting, exchange rate and output gap in Central and Eastern European countries

This paper aims at empirical assessment of monetary policy relationships in Central and Eastern European countries (Czechia, Hungary, Poland, Romania), which practise the monetary regime of inflation targeting. Using quarterly data for the period of 2004-2019, the authors examined the relationship between the output gap, nominal and real exchange rate misalignment, consumer price inflation and the central bank policy rate, using the panel vector autoregression (PVAR) model. According to estimates, the central banks of the CEE-4 countries react with an increase of their policy rate to the output gap and inflation, as implied by the Taylor rule. At the same time, a monetary reaction to nominal (real) exchange rate misalignment is lost in the estimates for the post-crisis period of 2010-2019. An increase of the central bank rates does not seem to have unfavourable output effects, while the nominal exchange rate is likely to depreciate with three to five quarter lags. However, there is evidence of the price puzzle when monetary tightening is followed by a counterintuitive increase in the inflation rate. In full accordance with the New Keynesian framework, inflation depends on the output gap, while being expansionary in the real sector. Evidence of the exchange rate pass-through (ERPT) to inflation is mixed. This article provides insights into the average monetary policy reaction function and its macroeconomic effects in the CEE-4 countries, with the value added in that following the Taylor rule does not guarantee effectiveness in tackling inflation in the presence of the price puzzle. Based on the estimated exchange rate effects on the output gap and inflation, deliberate currency appreciation resulting from the central bank foreign exchange interventions and/or fiscal austerity measures can be helpful for such a disinflation that minimises output losses.

Reaction of Indian Stock Market to Outbreak of COVID-19: An Empirical Analysis of Extreme Inter-day Movements

The contagious COVID-19 pandemic has been considered a massive global crisis since World War II and has disturbed business and economic activities across the globe. The current study examined the reaction of the stock market’s to the outbreak of COVID-19, considering the extreme inter-day movements in the Indian stock market. The extreme inter-day movements in S&P CNX Nifty-50 have been identified during the study period from January 2020 to December 2021 and further classified into decline and gain events based on positive and negative announcements related to COVID-19. The study utilized an event study approach and panel regression for empirical investigation. The results of the event study analysis illustrate that the significant abnormal loss ranges from 12.86% to 2.47% for the major decline events and significant abnormal return from 8.43% to 3.23% for the gain events. The regression analysis results showed that real return and Central Bank Policy rate have a considerable impact on the abnormal returns during COVID-19. The study’s findings are helpful to policy implications that identified the need to focus on financial education and strengthen the health and finance-related policies to deal with such pandemics in the future.

What determines passthrough of policy rates to deposit rates in the euro area?

Interest rates on bank deposits are sticky and move only sluggishly following changes in central bank policy rates. As deposits are typically the largest share of bank liabilities, deposit rate stickiness plays a key role for bank funding costs and profitability.

Exploring the performance of US international bond mutual funds

AbstractWe use a Bayesian regime switching approach to examine the performance enhancement of adding US international bond funds to a domestic bond universe pre and post the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) during January 1999 and May 2022. We find that the international bond funds provide large significant performance enhancement pre the GFC, with an increase in Certainty Equivalent Return (CER) performance of 0.595% (monthly), but none post the GFC. The performance enhancement pre GFC is driven by Large Emerging Market bond funds, which is likely fueled by a substantial drop in the Emerging Market central bank policy rates pre GFC.

Determinant of Output Growth during Pandemic Covid-19 in Six ASEAN Countries: Panel Data Approach between 2020:I and 2021: I

Covid-19 pandemic is blamed to be the one which steal one country’s generation because of its severe impacts in economic growth. The study investigates the determinants of output growth during Covid-19 pandemic in six ASEAN countries e.i. Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Viet Nam over the 2020:I - 2021:I period. This study utilises secondary data with panel regression pooled least square (common effect) estimation technique to answer whether the independent variables e.i. central bank policy rate (cbpr), total positive case of Covid-19 (covid), and credit default swap (cds) have significant impact on those six ASEAN countries.We find that cbpr, covid, and cds impact significantly (critical value 95%) on output growth in the six Asian countries. However, cbpr and cds still become puzzle which have a positive relationship with output growth, that might be normal tot the crisis situation. We recommend to include innovation as one prominent factor boosting the growth.

Measuring the response of the property price index to monetary policy shock: Evidence from emerging market economies

This study examined the response of the residential property price index (RPPI) to monetary policy shocks. The analysis utilized a panel vector autoregressive (VAR) estimation covering the markets of 12 emerging countries over a quarterly period from 2000 Q1 to 2022 Q4. In a dynamic data model, the panel VAR estimation could be biased when the coefficients of the endogenous variables differ across countries. The results of the pooling assumption showed that the models contain heterogeneity among samples, indicating the need for a solution to address this problem. Consequently, a mean group estimation for the panel VAR was performed to resolve the heterogeneity issue. The residential property price index negatively responded to changes in housing loan (HL) and central bank (CB) interest rates. In contrast, it positively responded to changes in inflation, gross domestic product, and population. This research provided policymakers with recommendations on emerging market demand. To successfully interfere in the property market, policymakers must pay greater attention to formulating monetary policy, notably central bank interest rates. A steady central bank policy rate prevents growth in the property sector. Future research should include macroprudential policy as an endogenous component in the model.

Monetary Policy and Trade: An Engine for Economic Growth

Amidst on the debate of the trade openness (TO) importance in influencing an economic growth (EG) and the central bank policy rate (CBPR), it is necessary to analyze the long-term relationship by using ARDL. This paper aims to analyze the CBPR and TO influence on EG in ASEAN -3. This study examines the EG model which focuses on the effect of CBPR and the ratio of exports in which plus imports divided by GDP as a measure of TO in ASEAN-3. The Data was collected from IFS for Indonesia, Philippines and Thailand for the period 2007q1-2022q2. The ARDL test method is used to determine the long-term relationship among the EG, TO and CBPR variables with different degrees of the integration. The FMOLS, DOLS, and CCR testing is for check robustness. The study show that CBPR has a positive effect on the EG in ASEAN-3, although it is only in Indonesia, and in Philippines which is statistically significant. The TO positive effect on the EG in Indonesia and in Thailand, but it is not significant and it has a TO statistically significant negative effect on EG in Philippines. The importance of this research given the recent interest in globalization activities, so the role of TO has become very important. A better TO understanding whether import dominance or vice versa helps in understanding the impact of globalization on the country economy. This finding emphasizes on the export importance over the imports in the economy. However, there is not an academic research looks at the long-term relationship between monetary policy and trade openness on the economic growth with the various econometric models.

Market participants or the random walk – who forecasts better? Evidence from micro-level survey data

We analyse micro-level data concerning four financial variables in Sveriges Riksbank's Prospera Survey to evaluate the precision of forecasts provided by professionals active in the Swedish fixed-income market. Our results indicate that for the SEK/EUR and SEK/USD exchange rates, and the five-year government bond yield, none of the market participants that frequently participate in the survey manage to significantly outperform the random-walk forecast. For the central bank's policy rate, the market participants typically have a statistically significant higher forecast precision than the random-walk forecast at the three-month horizon; however, at the two- and five-year horizons, the random-walk forecast typically outperforms the market participants.

Non-Bank Finance and Monetary Policy Transmission in Asia

ABSTRACT Focusing on Asian economies over the period 2006 to 2019, we find that while non-bank finance appears to complement rather than substitute credit provision by the traditional banking sector, weaker regulatory quality is an important driving factor. Moreover, while we find that central bank policy rates countercyclically affect credit provision by non-banks, impulse responses to monetary policy shocks with and without non-bank finance indicate that the effectiveness of monetary policy as a transmission channel to GDP growth, inflation, house prices, and traditional bank credit is weakened in the presence of non-bank finance. Our paper has implications for monetary policy implementation, potentially incorporating non-banks into central bank operations and liquidity provision, as well as for financial supervisors on mitigating regulatory arbitrage.

The Macroeconomic Effects of the Taylor Rule Deviations in Central and Eastern European Countries

A standard Taylor rule was estimated for several Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries (Czechia, Hungary, Poland, Romania) based on quarterly data over the 2002-2021 period. The SVAR model indicates, for all CEE countries, that the level of central bank policy rate below the Taylor rule implied rate is caused by both output gap and inflation, with the Taylor rule deviations having heterogeneous effects on other endogenous variables. Among other results, the depreciation of the exchange rate is contractionary and inflationary, the output gap is inflationary (except for Romania), while inflationary effects on output are different across the CEE countries.

Central bank policy rate announcements and high-frequency intra-day benchmark stock returns reaction dynamics: Evidence from South Africa

ABSTRACT This paper investigates the chronological impact of South African Reserve Bank (SARB) repo rate announcements on the Financial Times Stock Exchange/Johannesburg Securities Exchange (FTSE/JSE) All Share Index (ALSI) returns and returns volatility. Covering the period 2012–2021, the study employs the ‘event study’ approach, a risk augmented generalised autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity (GARCH-in-mean) model, and high-frequency intra-day 1-minute stock quotes during narrow windows to avert (or minimise) data contamination problems – endogeneity bias and coinciding effects of other exogenous variables on the stock market around the repo rate announcement time. In line with a priori expectations, there is an inverse relationship between stock returns and repo rate surprises (or unexpected repo rate changes). And consistent with findings in developed economies, our econometric results show that the reaction of the South African (SA) stock market to repo rate surprises is swift, indicating a high degree of ‘mechanical efficiency’ in respect to central bank policy rate surprises. But the delayed returns volatility response mirrors that of findings in the scant empirical literature on emerging markets. Evidence of both time-varying risk-return and time-varying degree of ‘informational efficiency’ is consistent with the adaptive market hypothesis (AMH).

Neural Network-Augmented Locally Adaptive Linear Regression Model for Tabular Data

Creating an interpretable model with high predictive performance is crucial in eXplainable AI (XAI) field. We introduce an interpretable neural network-based regression model for tabular data in this study. Our proposed model uses ordinary least squares (OLS) regression as a base-learner, and we re-update the parameters of our base-learner by using neural networks, which is a meta-learner in our proposed model. The meta-learner updates the regression coefficients using the confidence interval formula. We extensively compared our proposed model to other benchmark approaches on public datasets for regression task. The results showed that our proposed neural network-based interpretable model showed outperformed results compared to the benchmark models. We also applied our proposed model to the synthetic data to measure model interpretability, and we showed that our proposed model can explain the correlation between input and output variables by approximating the local linear function for each point. In addition, we trained our model on the economic data to discover the correlation between the central bank policy rate and inflation over time. As a result, it is drawn that the effect of central bank policy rates on inflation tends to strengthen during a recession and weaken during an expansion. We also performed the analysis on CO2 emission data, and our model discovered some interesting explanations between input and target variables, such as a parabolic relationship between CO2 emissions and gross national product (GNP). Finally, these experiments showed that our proposed neural network-based interpretable model could be applicable for many real-world applications where data type is tabular and explainable models are required.

The Short-Run and Long-Run Effects of Central Bank Rate on Exchange Rate Volatility in Indonesia

This research measures the short and long-run effects of central bank policy rate on the volatility of the exchange rate in Indonesia using the quarterly data from Q1 1992 to Q4 2019. The process involves applying an Autoregressive Distribution Lag estimation to investigate the effects of the variables. The exchange rate volatilities include Indonesia Rupiah to US Dollar (IDR-USD), Indonesia Rupiah to Singapore Dollar (IDR-SGD), Indonesia Rupiah to Australia Dollar (IDR-AUD), Indonesia Rupiah to British Pound Sterling (IDR-GBP), and Indonesia Rupiah to Euro (IDR-EURO). Several results were obtained and the first to show the adjustment time for exchange rate volatility to achieve long-run equilibrium was 1.77 quarters to 2.26 quarters using the ARDL estimation. Secondly, a decrease in the central bank rate was found to significantly reduce the exchange rate volatility in the short run and long run. These results are robust since Full Modified Ordinary Least Square (FMOLS) estimation was applied for all five models. Furthermore, it was found that in the long run, the central bank policy rate had a significant positive effect on the volatility of the Indonesia Rupiah against five foreign exchange rates. Therefore, it was suggested that the policymakers need to keep the interest rate of the central bank low and stable to ensure the Rupiah exchange rate stability.