Central Bank Preferences Research Articles

Risk preferences, global market conditions and foreign debt: Is there any role for the currency composition of FX reserves?

I estimate a transition probability matrix associated with a two-state Markov process of emerging market economies (EMEs) volatility. The different states of EMEs volatility, generate switches in central bank preferences between approximated constant relative risk aversion and increasing relative risk aversion expected utility. Therefore, I construct and propose constrained portfolio selection frameworks with skewness, for the currency composition of FX reserves over different EMEs volatility states for Brazil, Indonesia and South Africa. These EMEs have constituted as part of the “Fragile Five”. Thus, I propose progressive risk management procedures for these EMEs. These portfolio selection frameworks satisfy Pratt–Arrow measures of risk aversion and are constrained by each country’s currency composition of foreign debt. Using different methods of computing expected FX reserves returns, traditional strategic FX reserve assets and different maturity structures, I simulate optimal FX reserve weights for each EME and validate my proposal.

Taking the Fed at its Word: A New Approach to Estimating Central Bank Objectives using Text Analysis

AbstractWe propose a new approach to estimating central bank preferences, including the implicit inflation target, that requires no priors on the underlying macroeconomic structure nor observation of monetary policy actions. Our approach entails directly estimating the central bank’s objective function from the sentiment expressed by policymakers in their internal meetings. We apply the approach to the objective function of the U.S. Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC). The results challenge two key aspects of conventional wisdom regarding FOMC preferences. First, the FOMC had an implicit inflation target of approximately $1\frac{1}{2}$$\%$ on average over our baseline 2000–11 sample period, significantly below the commonly assumed value of 2. Second, the FOMC’s loss depends strongly on output growth and stock market performance and less so on their perception of current economic slack.

Monetary policy when the objectives of central bankers are imperfectly observable

AbstractThe paper presents a theoretical model for analysis of the imperfect observability of central bank preferences by the private sector on the decisions taken by the monetary authority, and therefore, on the inflation rate. It examines, in particular, the connection which, in the presence of a time‐inconsistency problem, arises between the observability of the monetary institution's goals and its equilibrium strategies. The model yields innovative results from the technical and economic points of view. From the technical point of view, it is possible to identify the conditions on the model's parameters under which a pure separating equilibrium arises, and the conditions under that there instead exists a “hybrid” equilibrium in which some types of Central Bankers adopt separating strategies whilst others adopt pooling strategies. From an economic point of view, the paper shows a number of relations that arise, in equilibrium, between the degree of observability and transparency of the Central Banker's goals and the inflation rate set by the Central Banker.

Taking the Fed at its Word: A New Approach to Estimating Central Bank Objectives Using Text Analysis

We propose a new approach to estimating central bank preferences, including the implicit inflation target, that requires no priors on the underlying macroeconomic structure nor observation of monetary policy actions. Our approach entails directly estimating the central bank's objective function from the sentiment expressed by policymakers in their internal meetings. We apply the approach to the objective function of the U.S. Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC). The results challenge two key aspects of conventional wisdom regarding FOMC preferences. First, the FOMC had an implicit inflation target of approximately 1½ percent on average over our baseline 2000 - 2011 sample period, significantly below the commonly-assumed value of 2. Second, the FOMC's loss depends strongly on output growth and stock market performance and less so on their perception of current economic slack.

Time-varying monetary policy reaction function under asymmetric preferences: revisiting the Brazilian inflation targeting experience

PurposeThis paper analyzes the potential presence of time-varying asymmetries in the preference parameters of the Central Bank of Brazil during the inflation targeting regime.Design/methodology/approachGiven the econometric issues inherent to classical time-varying parameter (TVP) regressions, a Bayesian estimation procedure is implemented in order to provide more robust parameter estimates. A stochastic volatility specification is also included to take into account the potential presence of conditional heteroskedasticity.FindingsThe obtained results show that the reduced form and structural parameters were not constant during the period considered. Moreover, the subsequent analysis of the preference parameters provided evidences of short periods in which asymmetry was an important feature to the conduction of monetary policy in Brazil. Yet, during most of the sample period, the loss function was considered to be symmetrical.Originality/valueThis paper aims to contribute to the rather scarce monetary debate on time-varying central bank preferences. The study of Lopes and Aragón (2014) is, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, the only study for Brazil considering specifically TVPs. The authors applied Kalman filter estimation to data from 2000:M1 to 2011:M12. Despite the similar structure of TVPs, the present paper extends the latter study by controlling for stochastic volatility. Ignoring conditional heteroskedasticity might lead to spurious movements in time-varying variables and inaccurate inference (Hamilton, 2010). Thus, the stochastic volatility specification is included to take this issue into account. The authors follow the theoretical scheme put forward by Surico (2007) and Aragón and Portugal (2010), in which the economy is modeled from a New Keynesian perspective and the central bank loss function is assumed to be asymmetric regarding the responses to inflation and output deviations from their targets. On the empirical side, the authors propose a TVP univariate regression with stochastic volatility for the Brazilian reduced-form reaction function, following closely the Bayesian econometric procedure developed by Nakajima (2011). Given the nonlinear non-Gaussian nature of the TVP regression with stochastic volatility, the choice of a nonlinear Bayesian approach using the Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) method is justified due to the intractability of the associated likelihood function (Primiceri, 2005). Finally, based on the theoretical model specification, the authors intend to recover the central bank preference parameters as to further evaluate the degree of asymmetry and its potential time-variation under the inflation targeting regime.

ASYMMETRY IN INFLATION TARGETING

Following the world financial crisis beginning in the last quarter of 2008, aggregate demand and commodity prices have declined sharply leading to a fast decline in world inflation. This different and new period reflects the rise in risk appetite leading to high fluctuations in the short term capital flows. World central banks revised their monetary policy to the changing conditions taking into account financial stability. In 2002, the Central Bank of Republic of Turkey adopted inflation targeting (in the implicit form) to maintain price stability. After 2008, parallel to the developments in global markets, the Turkish economy reflects decline in inflation rates. Together with the changes in the economic conditions, estimating monetary policy models in the form of constant-coefficient and symmetric specification may lead to erroneous interpretations. This study analyzes the existence of structural break(s) and asymmetric behavior for the 2003-2016 period. The paper also examines the monetary policy model under the New Keynesian DSGE model. The Turkish monetary policy investigated for the period presents October 2009 as the break point under different models and structural break tests. Asymmetric reactions to interest rate, output and exchange rate are observed which are suggesting changes in the monetary preferences of Central Bank of Republic of Turkey.

What do Latin American inflation targeters care about? A comparative Bayesian estimation of central bank preferences

This paper employs Bayesian estimation to uncover the central bank preferences of the five Latin American inflation targeting countries with floating exchange rates: Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and Peru. The target weights of each country’s central bank loss function are estimated using a medium-scale small open economy New Keynesian model with imperfect exchange-rate pass-through under either complete or incomplete international asset markets. Bayesian model comparison selects: (i) unambiguously the complete markets model version; (ii) the model specification with explicit concern for real exchange rate stabilization, with the exception of Peru. Our results suggest that the central banks of Mexico and Peru are closest to following a strict inflation targeting regime, whereas Brazil, Chile, and Colombia also assign a sizeable weight to output gap and real exchange rate stabilization. Finally, the estimated preference weights for each central bank are shown to credibly reflect their legal mandates.

The changing nature of the real exchange rate: The role of central bank preferences

We investigate the sources of real exchange rate fluctuations. We do so, first, in the context of a DSGE model that explicitly considers the central bank's preferences. Then we estimate SVAR models, where shocks are identified by sign restrictions derived from the DSGE model. We perform this exercise for twelve countries, nine of which have adopted inflation targeting during the period analyzed. In sharp contrast to the previous evidence in the literature, we find that exchange rate (country risk premium) shocks have become the main drivers of real exchange rate dynamics, while real shocks play a less important role. Evidence from the DSGE model reveals that, as the central bank becomes more averse to inflation movements, and cares less about nominal exchange rate fluctuations, the impact of nominal shocks on the real exchange rate tends to increase, while the impact of real shocks decreases. Our results suggest that the adoption of inflation targeting, along with a floating exchange rate, contributes to a shift in the relative importance of demand and country risk premium shocks in determining the RER.

Inflation forecasting using the New Keynesian Phillips Curve with a time-varying trend

Does theory aid inflation forecasting? To address this question, we develop a novel forecasting procedure based upon a New Keynesian Phillips Curve that incorporates time-varying trend inflation, to capture shifts in central bank preferences and monetary policy frameworks. We generate theory-implied predictions for both the trend and cyclical components of inflation, and recombine them to obtain an overall inflation forecast. Using quarterly data for the Euro Area and the United States that cover almost half a century, we compare our inflation forecasting procedure against the most popular time series models. We find that our theory-based forecasts outperform these benchmarks that previous studies found difficult to beat. Our results are shown to be robust to structural breaks, geographic areas, and variants of the econometric specification. Our findings suggest that the scepticism concerning the use of theory in forecasting is unwarranted, and theory should continue to play an important role in policymaking.

Commitment or Discretion? An Empirical Investigation of Monetary Policy Preferences in China

Despite the fact that China has become the second largest economy in the world, its monetary policy is yet to be understood by the outside observers. In this paper we estimate the policy preferences of China's central bank by confronting a small-scale microfounded New Keynesian DSGE model in which monetary policy is described by commitment or discretion with the Chinese macroeconomic data over the period from 1992Q2 to 2017Q4. Bayesian model comparison reveals that the data favours discretionary monetary policy. Estimates of the loss function weights under both cases show that the leading policy goal is price stability, followed by output stability and then interest rate smoothing. Finally, through counterfactual analyses we assess how macroeconomic outcomes might improve had the Chinese central bank been able to commit.

A textual Taylor rule: estimating central bank preferences combining topic and scaling methods

AbstractScholars often use voting data to estimate central bankers’ policy preferences but consensus voting is commonplace. To get around this, we combine topic-based text analysis and scaling methods to generate theoretically motivated comparative measures of central bank preferences on the US Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) leading up to the financial crisis in a way that does not depend on voting behavior. We apply these measures to a number of applications in the literature. For example, we find that FOMC members that are Federal Reserve Bank Presidents from districts experiencing higher unemployment are also more likely to emphasize unemployment in their speech. We also confirm that committee members on schedule to vote are more likely to express consensus opinion than their off schedule voting counterparts.

Monetary Policy in Poland – How the Financial Crisis Changed the Central Bank’s Preferences

Abstract The aim of the study is to analyze the preferences of the Polish central bank concerning inflation and output gap stabilization and verification, and whether these preferences changed after the beginning of the global financial crisis. For this purpose Taylor rules are estimated by the means of GMM (linear Taylor rule) and LS with breakpoints (nonlinear Taylor rule) estimation methods. We find that the smoothing parameter decreased, the weight of the output gap increased and the weight of inflation decreased after the outburst of the crisis. Moreover, we calculate ex-post interest rate simulations to compare the actual interest rates set by the NBP with a hypothetical situation of no change in the central bank’s preferences. The results suggest that the interest rates set by the NBP were significantly lower in comparison with the no-change scenario, in particular in the first quarters after the beginning of the crisis.

The Politics of Central Bank Appointments

Monetary delegation to independent central banks is the institutional standard for responsible monetary policy making. Governments overcome their own high inflation biases by delegating policy-making discretion to conservative central bankers with political independence and long terms of appointment. With a formal model of central bank appointments and monetary policy making, I provide results suggesting this canonical result hinges on widespread, empirically false assumptions about the nature of central bank preferences and the economic environment in which monetary policy making occurs. During periods of heightened monetary uncertainty, delegation to an independent central bank is a less effective institutional solution to achieving inflation goals than extant theory suggests. Under realistic economic conditions, monetary delegation can result in economic outcomes even worse than those we would expect if the government had maintained discretion. I test several predictions from the model drawing appointm...

Central bank transparency under the cost channel

AbstractThis paper studies the implications of information disclosure about the central bank's preferences regarding inflation and output‐gap stabilization in the presence of the cost channel of monetary transmission. Through this channel, higher interest rates translate into higher marginal costs of production and, finally, into higher inflation. Conventional wisdom has it that whether the central bank is transparent alters the effects of cost‐push or supply shocks, but does not change the fact that demand shocks are fully offset by optimal monetary policy. We show that this view is incorrect in the presence of a cost channel, since the latter not only affects how transparency interacts with cost‐push shocks, but also makes it interact with demand shocks. Moreover, the desirability of full transparency when shocks are persistent is significantly reduced by the presence of the cost channel.

Parameter uncertainty and inflation dynamics in a model with asymmetric central bank preferences

This paper builds on the Lucas' (1973) signal extraction model to study the time-varying effect of uncertainty in the output-inflation trade-off on inflation, using a monetary model with asymmetric central bank preferences whereby deviations of output (relative to target) from above are weighted differently from deviations from below. The model is investigated empirically using data from the South African Reserve Bank (SARB). We show that the implication of the uncertainty element is to cause the authority to change its indirect control, output by less (and hence change it direct control, interest rate by less) whenever inflation is below or above the target, in line with Brainard's attenuation principle. We also find that SARB's asymmetric output stabilization explains inflation movements significantly, and that the monetary authority seems to be more averse to business cycle recessions than expansions, hence more keen to avoid recessions than expansions. Overall, a more transparent and committed monetary policy practice that would reduce uncertainty over the output-inflation trade-off would be helpful for economic stability.

The effect of banking supervision on central bank preferences: Evidence from panel data

We examine the effects of banking supervisory architecture on central bank preferences, quantified through a recently proposed measure of central bank conservatism. Using a dynamic panel data specification we document that central banks serving both monetary policy and banking supervision functions are less inflation conservative than those with only a price stability mandate.

Are central bank preferences asymmetric when policy targets vary over time?

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the effect of time varying monetary policy targets on the asymmetric preferences hypothesis for US monetary policy. Recent literature suggests that monetary policy responds asymmetrically to fluctuations in either an output gap or unemployment gap. Most of these studies impose the assumption of constant inflation and interest rate targets. This paper models both of these target rates as time varying parameters using a nested specification to test for constancy in the target rates. Additionally, the paper examines the estimation strategy needed to estimate all of the policy maker’s structural or deep parameters for the asymmetric preferences model. The model is estimated via maximum likelihood using an iterative Kalman filter. Results show that asymmetric policy response over the output gap disappears for all sample periods when the joint underlying dynamics of inflation and interest rate data are accounted for. Additionally, the results indicate that policy target rates are not well represented by constants for all sample periods examined. As a whole, the empirical exercise suggests that conclusions about monetary policy behavior might be sensitive to modeling assumptions about target policy rates.

Monetary Policy under Uncertainty in WAEMU: Parsimonious Model and Central Bank Preferences

AbstractThis paper looks at the implications of monetary policy uncertainty in the WAEMU area over the period 1975Q1–2010Q2. Under uncertainty on the transmission mechanisms, the monetary policy must be cautious according to the Brainard conservatism principle. Using the linear quadratic stochastic control approach by introduction the variance covariance matrix of the estimated parameters in the optimal control theory the results through the optimal monetary policy rule yield that the policy‐makers are always very cautious when they have an inflation and output gap stabilization objective. However, when they are concerned to smooth interest rate, their behavior becomes distinctly more aggressive.

Uncertainty and fiscal policy in a monetary union: Why does monetary policy transmission matter?

In this paper, we develop a monetary-fiscal game in a monetary union with uncertainty due to imperfect transparency about the central bank's preferences. The objective is to investigate the macroeconomic effects of this uncertainty by explicitly taking into account the role of the monetary policy transmission mechanism. We first consider the case of symmetric monetary transmission in the monetary union and show that if the transmission mechanism is not too strong, monetary uncertainty may be beneficial in terms of macroeconomic performances and stabilisation. We then allow for some transmission asymmetry among the member countries and show that the beneficial impact of monetary uncertainty is exacerbated for countries that are more sensitive to the common monetary policy. More importantly, our findings suggest that the central bank's communication about its preferences could represent a specific instrument to influence inflation expectations and thus macroeconomic outcomes in the member countries.

Fiscal limits and monetary policy: default vs. inflation

This paper studies the monetary policy trade-off between low inflation and low sovereign risk in the environment where fiscal authorities fail to fully ensure the sustainability of government debt. Building on the Fiscal Theory of Price Level (FTPL) and the Fiscal Theory of Sovereign Risk (FTSR), this paper differs in its baseline assumption about the monetary policy objective, which is neither to rule out defaults regardless of inflation costs (as in FTPL), nor to follow inflation targeting regardless of associated sovereign risk (as in FTSR). Instead, we study the case in which the central bank controls the risky interest rate to minimize the probability of default while ruling out large inflation hikes. We show that this policy regime can mitigate default risks only when the central bank is expected to allow sufficient increases in inflation. When agents believe that the central bank's tolerance toward inflation hikes has increased, equilibrium risk premium goes down, suggesting that information concerning changes in the central bank's preferences over inflation directly impacts default risks.