IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/moneco/v52y2005i2p421-447.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

What do you expect? Imperfect policy credibility and tests of the expectations hypothesis

Author

Listed:
  • Kozicki, Sharon
  • Tinsley, P.A.

Abstract

The expectations hypothesis is a theory of the term structure of interest rates that describes a conventional view of the transmission mechanism of monetary policy. According to the expectations hypothesis, bond rates are related to current and expected movements in the policy-controlled rate. However, empirical rejections of the expectations hypothesis are commonplace and lead many to question this description of policy transmission. This paper argues that failure to account for imperfect policy credibility may explain empirical rejections. Empirical rejections may occur even when changing anticipations of future short rates are the primary source of variation in bond rates and the standard term structure transmission channel remains valid.
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Suggested Citation

  • Kozicki, Sharon & Tinsley, P.A., 2005. "What do you expect? Imperfect policy credibility and tests of the expectations hypothesis," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(2), pages 421-447, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:moneco:v:52:y:2005:i:2:p:421-447
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304-3932(05)00004-8
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

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

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Blanchard, Olivier J, 1984. "The Lucas Critique and the Volcker Deflation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 74(2), pages 211-215, May.
    2. English William B. & Nelson William R. & Sack Brian P., 2003. "Interpreting the Significance of the Lagged Interest Rate in Estimated Monetary Policy Rules," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 3(1), pages 1-18, April.
    3. Brayton, Flint & Levin, Andrew & Lyon, Ralph & Williams, John C., 1997. "The evolution of macro models at the Federal Reserve Board," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 47(1), pages 43-81, December.
    4. Bekaert, Geert & Hodrick, Robert J. & Marshall, David A., 1997. "On biases in tests of the expectations hypothesis of the term structure of interest rates," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(3), pages 309-348, June.
    5. Evans, Martin D D & Lewis, Karen K, 1995. "Do Expected Shifts in Inflation Affect Estimates of the Long-Run Fisher Relation?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 50(1), pages 225-253, March.
    6. Michael Dotsey & Christopher Otrok, 1995. "The rational expectations hypothesis of the term structure, monetary policy, and time-varying term premia," Economic Quarterly, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, issue Win, pages 65-81.
    7. Michael L. Mussa & Paul A. Volcker & James Tobin, 1994. "Monetary Policy," NBER Chapters, in: American Economic Policy in the 1980s, pages 81-164, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Fuhrer, Jeffrey C, 1997. "The (Un)Importance of Forward-Looking Behavior in Price Specifications," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 29(3), pages 338-350, August.
    9. Taylor, John B, 1980. "Aggregate Dynamics and Staggered Contracts," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 88(1), pages 1-23, February.
    10. Kozicki, Sharon & Tinsley, P. A., 2002. "Dynamic specifications in optimizing trend-deviation macro models," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 26(9-10), pages 1585-1611, August.
    11. Whitney K. Newey & Kenneth D. West, 1994. "Automatic Lag Selection in Covariance Matrix Estimation," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 61(4), pages 631-653.
    12. N. Gregory Mankiw & Lawrence H. Summers, 1984. "Do Long-Term Interest Rates Overreact to Short-Term Interest Rates?," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 15(1), pages 223-248.
    13. repec:bla:jfinan:v:44:y:1989:i:2:p:283-305 is not listed on IDEAS
    14. Michael Woodford, 1998. "Control of the Public Debt: A Requirement for Price Stability?," International Economic Association Series, in: Guillermo Calvo & Mervyn King (ed.), The Debt Burden and its Consequences for Monetary Policy, chapter 5, pages 117-158, Palgrave Macmillan.
    15. Ben S. Bernanke & Mark Gertler & Mark Watson, 1997. "Systematic Monetary Policy and the Effects of Oil Price Shocks," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 28(1), pages 91-157.
    16. Shiller, Robert J, 1979. "The Volatility of Long-Term Interest Rates and Expectations Models of the Term Structure," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 87(6), pages 1190-1219, December.
    17. John B. Taylor, 1999. "Introduction to "Monetary Policy Rules"," NBER Chapters, in: Monetary Policy Rules, pages 1-14, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. Jeff Fuhrer & George Moore, 1995. "Inflation Persistence," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 110(1), pages 127-159.
    19. N. Gregory Mankiw & Jeffrey A. Miron, 1986. "The Changing Behavior of the Term Structure of Interest Rates," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 101(2), pages 211-228.
    20. 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.
    21. Glenn Rudebusch & Lars E.O. Svensson, 1999. "Policy Rules for Inflation Targeting," NBER Chapters, in: Monetary Policy Rules, pages 203-262, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    22. Sharon Kozicki & Peter A. Tinsley, 2002. "Alternative sources of the lag dynamics of inflation," Research Working Paper RWP 02-12, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City.
    23. Marvin Goodfriend & Robert G. King, 1997. "The New Neoclassical Synthesis and the Role of Monetary Policy," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1997, Volume 12, pages 231-296, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    24. David Barr & John Campbell, "undated". "Inflation, real interest rates and the bond market: a study of UK nominal and index-linked Government bond prices," CERF Discussion Paper Series 95-09, Economics and Finance Section, School of Social Sciences, Brunel University.
    25. John Y. Campbell & Robert J. Shiller, 1991. "Yield Spreads and Interest Rate Movements: A Bird's Eye View," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 58(3), pages 495-514.
    26. Fuhrer, Jeffrey C & Moore, George R, 1995. "Monetary Policy Trade-offs and the Correlation between Nominal Interest Rates and Real Output," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(1), pages 219-239, March.
    27. 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.
    28. Fuhrer, Jeffrey C., 2010. "Inflation Persistence," Handbook of Monetary Economics, in: Benjamin M. Friedman & Michael Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Monetary Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 9, pages 423-486, Elsevier.
    29. Refet S. Gürkaynak & Brian P. Sack & Eric T. Swanson, 2003. "The excess sensitivity of long-term interest rates: evidence and implications for macroeconomic models," Proceedings, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, issue Mar.
    30. Bennett T. McCallum, 2005. "Monetary policy and the term structure of interest rates," Economic Quarterly, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, vol. 91(Fall), pages 1-21.
    31. John C. Cox & Jonathan E. Ingersoll Jr. & Stephen A. Ross, 2005. "A Theory Of The Term Structure Of Interest Rates," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Sudipto Bhattacharya & George M Constantinides (ed.), Theory Of Valuation, chapter 5, pages 129-164, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    32. Crowder, William J & Hoffman, Dennis L, 1996. "The Long-Run Relationship between Nominal Interest Rates and Inflation: The Fisher Equation Revisited," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 28(1), pages 102-118, February.
    33. 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.
    34. John B. Taylor, 1999. "A Historical Analysis of Monetary Policy Rules," NBER Chapters, in: Monetary Policy Rules, pages 319-348, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    35. John B. Taylor, 1999. "Monetary Policy Rules," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number tayl99-1.
    36. Fuhrer, Jeffrey C. & Rudebusch, Glenn D., 2004. "Estimating the Euler equation for output," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(6), pages 1133-1153, September.
    37. Thomas Sargent & Noah Williams & Tao Zha, 2009. "The Conquest of South American Inflation," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 117(2), pages 211-256, April.
    38. Kozicki, Sharon & Tinsley, P A, 1998. "Moving Endpoints and the Internal Consistency of Agents' Ex Ante Forecasts," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 11(1-2), pages 21-40, April.
    39. Hamilton, James D., 1988. "Rational-expectations econometric analysis of changes in regime : An investigation of the term structure of interest rates," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 12(2-3), pages 385-423.
    40. Kozicki, Sharon & Tinsley, P. A., 2001. "Term structure views of monetary policy under alternative models of agent expectations," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 25(1-2), pages 149-184, January.
    41. Evans, Martin D. D. & Lewis, Karen K., 1994. "Do stationary risk premia explain it all?: Evidence from the term structure," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(2), pages 285-318, April.
    42. Huh, Chan G. & Lansing, Kevin J., 2000. "Expectations, credibility, and disinflation in a small macroeconomic model," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 52(1-2), pages 51-86.
    43. Robert J. Shiller & John Y. Campbell & Kermit L. Schoenholtz, 1983. "Forward Rates and Future Policy: Interpreting the Term Structure of Interest Rates," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 14(1), pages 173-224.
    44. John M. Roberts, 1998. "Inflation expectations and the transmission of monetary policy," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 1998-43, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    45. Jeffrey C. Fuhrer, 1995. "The persistence of inflation and the cost of disinflation," New England Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, issue Jan, pages 3-16.
    46. Green, Richard C & Odegaard, Bernt A, 1997. "Are There Tax Effects in the Relative Pricing of U.S. Government Bonds?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(2), pages 609-633, June.
    47. Fama, Eugene F & Bliss, Robert R, 1987. "The Information in Long-Maturity Forward Rates," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 77(4), pages 680-692, September.
    48. Sola, Martin & Driffill, John, 1994. "Testing the term structure of interest rates using a stationary vector autoregression with regime switching," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 18(3-4), pages 601-628.
    49. Bekaert, Geert & Hodrick, Robert J. & Marshall, David A., 2001. "Peso problem explanations for term structure anomalies," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(2), pages 241-270, October.
    50. Jeffrey C. Fuhrer, 1996. "Monetary Policy Shifts and Long-Term Interest Rates," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 111(4), pages 1183-1209.
    51. 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.
    52. Kozicki, Sharon & Tinsley, P. A., 2001. "Shifting endpoints in the term structure of interest rates," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(3), pages 613-652, June.
    53. Taylor, John B., 1993. "Discretion versus policy rules in practice," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 195-214, December.
    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. Coenen, Gunter & Wieland, Volker, 2005. "A small estimated euro area model with rational expectations and nominal rigidities," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 49(5), pages 1081-1104, July.
    2. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/5221 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Glenn D. Rudebusch & Tao Wu, 2008. "A Macro‐Finance Model of the Term Structure, Monetary Policy and the Economy," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 118(530), pages 906-926, July.
    4. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/5221 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Kozicki, Sharon & Tinsley, P.A., 2005. "Permanent and transitory policy shocks in an empirical macro model with asymmetric information," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 29(11), pages 1985-2015, November.
    6. Kozicki, Sharon & Tinsley, P. A., 2001. "Term structure views of monetary policy under alternative models of agent expectations," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 25(1-2), pages 149-184, January.
    7. Rudebusch, Glenn D., 2002. "Term structure evidence on interest rate smoothing and monetary policy inertia," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(6), pages 1161-1187, September.
    8. Glenn D. Rudebusch, 2002. "Assessing Nominal Income Rules for Monetary Policy with Model and Data Uncertainty," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 112(479), pages 402-432, April.
    9. Huh, Chan G. & Lansing, Kevin J., 2000. "Expectations, credibility, and disinflation in a small macroeconomic model," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 52(1-2), pages 51-86.
    10. Bekaert, Geert & Hodrick, Robert J. & Marshall, David A., 2001. "Peso problem explanations for term structure anomalies," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(2), pages 241-270, October.
    11. M. Isabel Martínez-Serna & Eliseo Navarro-Arribas, 2002. "El modelo de McCallum. Evidencia empírica en la estructura temporal de los tipos de interés española," Investigaciones Economicas, Fundación SEPI, vol. 26(2), pages 323-357, May.
    12. Sharon Kozicki & Peter A. Tinsley, 2002. "Alternative sources of the lag dynamics of inflation," Research Working Paper RWP 02-12, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City.
    13. Guidolin, Massimo & Thornton, Daniel L., 2018. "Predictions of short-term rates and the expectations hypothesis," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 34(4), pages 636-664.
    14. Jondeau, E. & Sedillot, F., 1998. "La prevision des taux longs français et allemands a partir d'un modele a anticipations rationnelles," Working papers 55, Banque de France.
    15. Teruyoshi Kobayashi, 2004. "On the Relationship Between Short‐ and Long‐term Interest Rates," International Finance, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 7(2), pages 261-286, July.
    16. Wieland, Volker & Cwik, Tobias & Müller, Gernot J. & Schmidt, Sebastian & Wolters, Maik, 2012. "A new comparative approach to macroeconomic modeling and policy analysis," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 83(3), pages 523-541.
    17. Carriero, Andrea & Favero, Carlo A. & Kaminska, Iryna, 2006. "Financial factors, macroeconomic information and the Expectations Theory of the term structure of interest rates," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 131(1-2), pages 339-358.
    18. Glenn D. Rudebusch, 2002. "Assessing Nominal Income Rules for Monetary Policy with Model and Data Uncertainty," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 112(479), pages 402-432, April.
    19. Dennis, Richard & Soderstrom, Ulf, 2006. "How Important Is Precommitment for Monetary Policy?," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 38(4), pages 847-872, June.
    20. Chengsi Zhang & Denise R. Osborn & Dong Heon Kim, 2009. "Observed Inflation Forecasts and the New Keynesian Phillips Curve," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 71(3), pages 375-398, June.
    21. Favero, Carlo A., 2001. "Does Macroeconomics Help Us To Understand the Term Structure of Interest Rates?," CEPR Discussion Papers 2849, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    22. Roberds, William & Whiteman, Charles H., 1999. "Endogenous term premia and anomalies in the term structure of interest rates: Explaining the predictability smile," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(3), pages 555-580, December.

    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:eee:moneco:v:52:y:2005:i:2:p:421-447. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/505566 .

    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.