IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/aecrev/v90y2000i3p429-457.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Federal Reserve Information and the Behavior of Interest Rates

Author

Listed:
  • David H. Romer
  • Christina D. Romer

Abstract

This paper tests for the existence of asymmetric information between the Federal Reserve and the public by examining Federal Reserve and commercial inflation forecasts. It demonstrates that the Federal Reserve has considerable information about inflation beyond what is known to commercial forecasters. It also shows that monetary-policy actions provide signals of the Federal Reserve's information and that commercial forecasters modify their forecasts in response to those signals. These findings may explain why long-term interest rates typically rise in response to shifts to tighter monetary policy.

Suggested Citation

  • David H. Romer & Christina D. Romer, 2000. "Federal Reserve Information and the Behavior of Interest Rates," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(3), pages 429-457, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:aecrev:v:90:y:2000:i:3:p:429-457
    Note: DOI: 10.1257/aer.90.3.429
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/aer.90.3.429
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Christina D. Romer & David H. Romer, 1994. "What Ends Recessions?," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1994, Volume 9, pages 13-80, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Canzoneri, Matthew B, 1985. "Monetary Policy Games and the Role of Private Information," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 75(5), pages 1056-1070, December.
    3. Barro, Robert J. & Gordon, David B., 1983. "Rules, discretion and reputation in a model of monetary policy," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 12(1), pages 101-121.
    4. Hansen, Lars Peter & Hodrick, Robert J, 1980. "Forward Exchange Rates as Optimal Predictors of Future Spot Rates: An Econometric Analysis," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 88(5), pages 829-853, October.
    5. Tilman Ehrbeck & Robert Waldmann, 1996. "Why Are Professional Forecasters Biased? Agency versus Behavioral Explanations," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 111(1), pages 21-40.
    6. Bernanke, Ben S & Blinder, Alan S, 1992. "The Federal Funds Rate and the Channels of Monetary Transmission," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(4), pages 901-921, September.
    7. Cukierman, Alex & Meltzer, Allan H, 1986. "A Theory of Ambiguity, Credibility, and Inflation under Discretion and Asymmetric Information," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 54(5), pages 1099-1128, September.
    8. Newey, Whitney & West, Kenneth, 2014. "A simple, positive semi-definite, heteroscedasticity and autocorrelation consistent covariance matrix," Applied Econometrics, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), vol. 33(1), pages 125-132.
    9. Sims, Christopher A, 1980. "Macroeconomics and Reality," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 48(1), pages 1-48, January.
    10. Lamont, Owen A., 2002. "Macroeconomic forecasts and microeconomic forecasters," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 48(3), pages 265-280, July.
    11. Barsky, Robert B., 1987. "The Fisher hypothesis and the forecastability and persistence of inflation," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(1), pages 3-24, January.
    12. Scharfstein, David S & Stein, Jeremy C, 1990. "Herd Behavior and Investment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(3), pages 465-479, June.
    13. Sargent, Thomas J & Wallace, Neil, 1975. ""Rational" Expectations, the Optimal Monetary Instrument, and the Optimal Money Supply Rule," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 83(2), pages 241-254, April.
    14. Rudebusch, Glenn D., 1995. "Federal Reserve interest rate targeting, rational expectations, and the term structure," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 35(2), pages 245-274, April.
    15. Barro, Robert J., 1976. "Rational expectations and the role of monetary policy," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 2(1), pages 1-32, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Christina D. Romer & David H. Romer, 1996. "Federal Reserve Private Information and the Behavior of Interest Rates," NBER Working Papers 5692, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. George B. Tawadros, 2013. "The information content of the Reserve Bank of Australia's inflation forecasts," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 45(5), pages 623-628, February.
    3. Paul Hubert, 2015. "Revisiting the Greenbook’s relative forecasting performance," Revue de l'OFCE, Presses de Sciences-Po, vol. 0(1), pages 151-179.
    4. Ball, Laurence & Croushore, Dean, 2003. "Expectations and the Effects of Monetary Policy," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 35(4), pages 473-484, August.
    5. repec:spo:wpecon:info:hdl:2441/f4rshpf3v1umfa09lat09b1bg is not listed on IDEAS
    6. repec:hal:wpspec:info:hdl:2441/f4rshpf3v1umfa09lat09b1bg is not listed on IDEAS
    7. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/35kgubh40v9gfpnuruelqjnptb is not listed on IDEAS
    8. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/35kgubh40v9gfpnuruelqjnptb is not listed on IDEAS
    9. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/f4rshpf3v1umfa09lat09b1bg is not listed on IDEAS
    10. Paul Hubert, 2010. "Monetary policy, imperfect information and the expectations channel [Politique monétaire,information imparfaite et canal des anticipations]," SciencePo Working papers Main tel-04095385, HAL.
    11. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/f4rshpf3v1umfa09lat09b1bg is not listed on IDEAS
    12. Kui-Wai Li, 2013. "The US monetary performance prior to the 2008 crisis," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 45(24), pages 3450-3461, August.
    13. Graham Elliott & Ivana Komunjer & Allan Timmermann, 2008. "Biases in Macroeconomic Forecasts: Irrationality or Asymmetric Loss?," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 6(1), pages 122-157, March.
    14. Baghestani, Hamid, 2008. "Federal Reserve versus private information: Who is the best unemployment rate predictor," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 30(1), pages 101-110.
    15. Akhand Akhtar Hossain, 2009. "Central Banking and Monetary Policy in the Asia-Pacific," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 12777.
    16. Joe Peek & Eric Rosengren & Geoffrey M. B. Tootell, 1998. "Does the Federal Reserve have an informational advantage? you can bank on it," Working Papers 98-2, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.
    17. Elmar Mertens, 2016. "Managing Beliefs about Monetary Policy under Discretion," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 48(4), pages 661-698, June.
    18. Clayton, Christopher & Schaab, Andreas, 2022. "A Theory of Dynamic Inflation Targets," TSE Working Papers 22-1389, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE).
    19. Philip Arestis & Alexander Mihailov, 2011. "Classifying Monetary Economics: Fields And Methods From Past To Future," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(4), pages 769-800, September.
    20. Benjamin YAMB & Jean Louis EKOMANE, 2019. "Human Development:“Can money buy Happiness?â€," Romanian Journal of Economics, Institute of National Economy, vol. 49(2(58)), pages 31-49, December.
    21. Javier Valles & Jose Vinals, 1999. "On the real effects of the monetary policy: A central banker's view," Working Papers 38, Oesterreichische Nationalbank (Austrian Central Bank).
    22. Bordo, Michael D. & Schwartz, Anna J., 1999. "Monetary policy regimes and economic performance: The historical record," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & M. Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 3, pages 149-234, Elsevier.
    23. Andrew G Haldane & Vicky Read, 2000. "Monetary policy surprises and the yield curve," Bank of England working papers 106, Bank of England.
    24. repec:onb:oenbwp:y::i:38:b:1 is not listed on IDEAS
    25. Hansen, Lars Peter, 2013. "Uncertainty Outside and Inside Economic Models," Nobel Prize in Economics documents 2013-7, Nobel Prize Committee.
    26. Bierens, H.J. & Broersma, L., 1991. "The relation between unemployment and interest rate : some international evidence," Serie Research Memoranda 0112, VU University Amsterdam, Faculty of Economics, Business Administration and Econometrics.
    27. Guillermo A. Calvo & Carmen M. Reinhart, 2002. "Fear of Floating," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 117(2), pages 379-408.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • E43 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Interest Rates: Determination, Term Structure, and Effects
    • E52 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Monetary Policy
    • E58 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Central Banks and Their Policies

    Lists

    This item is featured on the following reading lists, Wikipedia, or ReplicationWiki pages:
    1. Federal Reserve Information and the Behavoir of Interest Rates (AER 2000) in ReplicationWiki

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:aea:aecrev:v:90:y:2000:i:3:p:429-457. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Michael P. Albert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.