IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/ecorec/v83y2007i261p131-142.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Do the Central Banks of Australia and New Zealand Behave Asymmetrically? Evidence from Monetary Policy Reaction Functions

Author

Listed:
  • ÖZER KARAGEDIKLI
  • KIRDAN LEES

Abstract

We test for evidence of asymmetric behaviour in the monetary policy reaction functions of the central banks of Australia and New Zealand. For the Reserve Bank of New Zealand, we found little evidence of asymmetric behaviour, whereas the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) appears to react more aggressively to negative output relative to positive output gaps of the same size. We impose additional structure on our model to help distinguish whether the asymmetric response originates from non‐linearity in the inflation equation or from non‐linearity in an approximate representation of the RBA's preferences over macroeconomic outcomes. We find that the preferences of the RBA may drive the asymmetry: the RBA appears to dislike negative output gaps more than positive output gaps of the same magnitude. We show this generates only a small increase in the conditional mean of inflation that is statistically indistinguishable from the target rate of inflation.

Suggested Citation

  • Özer Karagedikli & Kirdan Lees, 2007. "Do the Central Banks of Australia and New Zealand Behave Asymmetrically? Evidence from Monetary Policy Reaction Functions," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 83(261), pages 131-142, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:ecorec:v:83:y:2007:i:261:p:131-142
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1475-4932.2007.00389.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-4932.2007.00389.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1475-4932.2007.00389.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Orphanides, Athanasios & Wieland, Volker, 2000. "Inflation zone targeting," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 44(7), pages 1351-1387, June.
    2. Aaron Drew & L Christopher Plantier, 2000. "Interest rate smoothing in New Zealand and other dollar bloc countries," Reserve Bank of New Zealand Discussion Paper Series DP2000/10, Reserve Bank of New Zealand.
    3. Mark Gertler & Jordi Gali & Richard Clarida, 1999. "The Science of Monetary Policy: A New Keynesian Perspective," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 37(4), pages 1661-1707, December.
    4. Laxton, Douglas & Rose, David & Tambakis, Demosthenes, 1999. "The U.S. Phillips curve: The case for asymmetry," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 23(9-10), pages 1459-1485, September.
    5. A. Robert Nobay & David A. Peel, 2003. "Optimal Discretionary Monetary Policy in a Model of Asymmetric Central Bank Preferences," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 113(489), pages 657-665, July.
    6. Richard Clarida & Jordi Gali & Mark Gertler, 2001. "Optimal Monetary Policy in Open versus Closed Economies: An Integrated Approach," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(2), pages 248-252, May.
    7. David Gruen & Tim Robinson & Andrew Stone, 2005. "Output Gaps In Real Time: How Reliable Are They?," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 81(252), pages 6-18, March.
    8. Ireland, Peter N., 2004. "A method for taking models to the data," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 28(6), pages 1205-1226, March.
    9. Paolo Surico, 2003. "Asymmetric Reaction Functions for the Euro Area," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 19(1), pages 44-57.
    10. Richard Dennis, 2003. "Exploring the Role of the Real Exchange Rate in Australian Monetary Policy," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 79(244), pages 20-38, March.
    11. Svensson, Lars E. O. & Woodford, Michael, 2003. "Indicator variables for optimal policy," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(3), pages 691-720, April.
    12. Surico, Paolo, 2007. "The Fed's monetary policy rule and U.S. inflation: The case of asymmetric preferences," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 305-324, January.
    13. Alex Cukierman & Stefan Gerlach, 2003. "The inflation bias revisited: theory and some international evidence," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 71(5), pages 541-565, September.
    14. Sack, Brian & Wieland, Volker, 2000. "Interest-rate smoothing and optimal monetary policy: a review of recent empirical evidence," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 52(1-2), pages 205-228.
    15. Dolado, Juan J. & Maria-Dolores, Ramon & Naveira, Manuel, 2005. "Are monetary-policy reaction functions asymmetric?: The role of nonlinearity in the Phillips curve," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 49(2), pages 485-503, February.
    16. Weshah Razzak, 1997. "The inflation-output trade-off: Is the Phillips Curve symmetric? A policy lesson from New Zealand," Reserve Bank of New Zealand Discussion Paper Series G97/2, Reserve Bank of New Zealand.
    17. Richard Clarida & Jordi Gali & Mark Gertler, 2001. "Optimal Monetary Policy in Closed versus Open Economies: An Integrated Approach," NBER Working Papers 8604, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. GORDON De BROUWER & JAMES GILBERT, 2005. "Monetary Policy Reaction Functions in Australia," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 81(253), pages 124-134, June.
    19. Granger, Clive W. J. & Terasvirta, Timo, 1993. "Modelling Non-Linear Economic Relationships," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198773207.
    20. Michael Woodford, 2003. "Optimal Interest-Rate Smoothing," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 70(4), pages 861-886.
    21. Stephen Grenville, 1997. "The Evolution of Monetary Policy: From Money Targets to Inflation Targets," RBA Annual Conference Volume (Discontinued), in: Philip Lowe (ed.),Monetary Policy and Inflation Targeting, Reserve Bank of Australia.
    22. Frank Smets & Raf Wouters, 2003. "An Estimated Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium Model of the Euro Area," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 1(5), pages 1123-1175, September.
    23. Michael Graff, 2004. "Estimates of the output gap in real time: how well have we been doing?," Reserve Bank of New Zealand Discussion Paper Series DP 2004/04, Reserve Bank of New Zealand.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Vašíček, Bořek, 2012. "Is monetary policy in the new EU member states asymmetric?," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 36(2), pages 235-263.
    2. Bjørnland, Hilde C. & Gerdrup, Karsten & Jore, Anne Sofie & Smith, Christie & Thorsrud, Leif Anders, 2011. "Weights and pools for a Norwegian density combination," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 22(1), pages 61-76, January.
    3. Julia Ratcliffe & Ross Kendall, 2019. "Monetary policy strategy in New Zealand," Reserve Bank of New Zealand Bulletin, Reserve Bank of New Zealand, vol. 82, pages 1-25, April.
    4. Baxa, Jaromír & Horváth, Roman & Vašíček, Bořek, 2014. "How Does Monetary Policy Change? Evidence On Inflation-Targeting Countries," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 18(3), pages 593-630, April.
    5. Ikeda, Taro, 2010. "Time-varying asymmetries in central bank preferences: The case of the ECB," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 32(4), pages 1054-1066, December.
    6. Kerry B. Hudson & Joaquin L. Vespignani, 2014. "Understanding the Deviations of the Taylor Rule: A New Methodology with an Application to Australia," CAMA Working Papers 2014-78, Centre for Applied Macroeconomic Analysis, Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University.
    7. Jacob Punnoose & Amber Wadsworth, 2018. "Estimated policy rules for different monetary regimes: Flexible inflation targeting versus a dual mandate," Reserve Bank of New Zealand Analytical Notes series AN2018/11, Reserve Bank of New Zealand.
    8. Hudson, Kerry & Vespignani, Joaquin L., 2015. "Understanding the Taylor Rule in Australia," MPRA Paper 104679, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Thanaset Chevapatrakul & Juan Paez-Farrell, 2014. "Monetary Policy Reaction Functions in Small Open Economies: a Quantile Regression Approach," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 82(2), pages 237-256, March.

    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. Caglayan, Mustafa & Jehan, Zainab & Mouratidis, Kostas, 2012. "Asymmetric monetary policy rules for open economies: Evidence from four countries," MPRA Paper 37401, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Mustafa Caglayan & Zainab Jehan & Kostas Mouratidis, 2016. "Asymmetric Monetary Policy Rules for an Open Economy: Evidence from Canada and the Uk," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 21(3), pages 279-293, July.
    3. Daniel Buncic & Martin Melecky, 2008. "An Estimated New Keynesian Policy Model for Australia," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 84(264), pages 1-16, March.
    4. Shawn Chen‐Yu Leu & Jeffrey Sheen, 2006. "Asymmetric Monetary Policy in Australia," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 82(s1), pages 85-96, September.
    5. Paolo Surico, 2002. "Inflation Targeting and Nonlinear Policy Rules: the Case of Asymmetric Preferences," Macroeconomics 0210002, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 23 Feb 2004.
    6. Doyle, Matthew & Falk, Barry, 2010. "Do asymmetric central bank preferences help explain observed inflation outcomes?," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 32(2), pages 527-540, June.
    7. Nidhal Mgadmi & Slim Chaouachi & Wajdi Moussa & Azza Bejaoui, 2021. "Does the Tunisian Central Bank follow an augmented nonlinear Taylor rule?," SN Business & Economics, Springer, vol. 1(1), pages 1-15, January.
    8. de Sá, Rodrigo & Portugal, Marcelo S., 2015. "Central bank and asymmetric preferences: An application of sieve estimators to the U.S. and Brazil," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 72-83.
    9. Wieland, Volker & Wolters, Maik, 2013. "Forecasting and Policy Making," Handbook of Economic Forecasting, in: G. Elliott & C. Granger & A. Timmermann (ed.), Handbook of Economic Forecasting, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 239-325, Elsevier.
    10. Naveen Srinivasan & Vidya Mahambare & M. Ramachandran, 2006. "UK monetary policy under inflation forecast targeting: is behaviour consistent with symmetric preferences?," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 58(4), pages 706-721, October.
    11. Florio, Anna, 2006. "Asymmetric interest rate smoothing: The Fed approach," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 93(2), pages 190-195, November.
    12. Anna Florio, 2009. "Asymmetric Preferences For Interest Rate Variability And Non‐Linear Monetary Policy Inertia," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 56(5), pages 685-704, November.
    13. de Sá, Rodrigo & Savino Portugal, Marcelo, 2015. "Central bank and asymmetric preferences: An application of sieve estimators to the U.S. and Brazil," MPRA Paper 72746, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    14. Kranz Tobias, 2017. "Calibrating the Equilibrium Condition of a New Keynesian Model with Uncertainty," Review of Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 68(2), pages 117-151, August.
    15. Naraidoo, Ruthira & Raputsoane, Leroi, 2011. "Optimal monetary policy reaction function in a model with target zones and asymmetric preferences for South Africa," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 28(1-2), pages 251-258, January.
    16. Surico, Paolo, 2007. "The Fed's monetary policy rule and U.S. inflation: The case of asymmetric preferences," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 305-324, January.
    17. Komlan, Fiodendji, 2013. "The asymmetric reaction of monetary policy to inflation and the output gap: Evidence from Canada," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 911-923.
    18. Michael Paetz, 2007. "Robust Control and Persistence in the New Keynesian Economy," Quantitative Macroeconomics Working Papers 20711, Hamburg University, Department of Economics.
    19. Edilean Kleber da Silva Bejarano Aragón & Marcelo Savino Portugal, 2008. "Nonlinearities in Central Bank of Brazil’s reaction function: the case of asymmetric preferences," Anais do XXXVI Encontro Nacional de Economia [Proceedings of the 36th Brazilian Economics Meeting] 200807151356590, ANPEC - Associação Nacional dos Centros de Pós-Graduação em Economia [Brazilian Association of Graduate Programs in Economics].
    20. Akosah, Nana Kwame & Alagidede, Imhotep Paul & Schaling, Eric, 2020. "Testing for asymmetry in monetary policy rule for small-open developing economies: Multiscale Bayesian quantile evidence from Ghana," The Journal of Economic Asymmetries, Elsevier, vol. 22(C).

    More about this item

    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:bla:ecorec:v:83:y:2007:i:261:p:131-142. 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/esausea.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.