IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/pal/buseco/v53y2018i2d10.1057_s11369-018-0077-1.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

R-star wars: the phantom menace

Author

Listed:
  • James B. Bullard

    (Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis)

Abstract

The natural real rate of interest has been on a declining path for the past 30 years. I present a regime-switching analysis of the natural rate, which suggests that the current low levels are likely to persist in the near future. I identify a high global demand for safe assets as the most important factor in keeping the natural rate low. I conclude that the current low levels of the policy rate are generally appropriate, with some upside risk, and that forward guidance should be characterized by a flat policy rate path.

Suggested Citation

  • James B. Bullard, 2018. "R-star wars: the phantom menace," Business Economics, Palgrave Macmillan;National Association for Business Economics, vol. 53(2), pages 60-65, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:pal:buseco:v:53:y:2018:i:2:d:10.1057_s11369-018-0077-1
    DOI: 10.1057/s11369-018-0077-1
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1057/s11369-018-0077-1
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1057/s11369-018-0077-1?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
    ---><---

    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. Paul Gomme & B. Ravikumar & Peter Rupert, 2011. "The Return to Capital and the Business Cycle," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 14(2), pages 262-278, April.
    2. John B. Taylor, 1999. "Introduction to "Monetary Policy Rules"," NBER Chapters, in: Monetary Policy Rules, pages 1-14, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Kahn, James A. & Rich, Robert W., 2007. "Tracking the new economy: Using growth theory to detect changes in trend productivity," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(6), pages 1670-1701, September.
    4. Holston, Kathryn & Laubach, Thomas & Williams, John C., 2017. "Measuring the natural rate of interest: International trends and determinants," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 108(S1), pages 59-75.
    5. Lukasz Rachel & Thomas Smith, 2015. "Secular Drivers of the Global Real Interest Rate," Discussion Papers 1605, Centre for Macroeconomics (CFM).
    6. 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.
    7. Bill Dupor, 2015. "Liftoff and the Natural Rate of Interest," Economic Synopses, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, issue 12.
    8. Claudio Borio & Piti Disyatat & Mikael Juselius & Phurichai Rungcharoenkitkul, 2022. "Why So Low for So Long? A Long-Term View of Real Interest Rates," International Journal of Central Banking, International Journal of Central Banking, vol. 18(3), pages 47-87, September.
    9. Thomas Laubach & John C. Williams, 2003. "Measuring the Natural Rate of Interest," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 85(4), pages 1063-1070, November.
    10. Hamilton, James D, 1989. "A New Approach to the Economic Analysis of Nonstationary Time Series and the Business Cycle," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 57(2), pages 357-384, March.
    11. Lagos, Ricardo, 2010. "Asset prices and liquidity in an exchange economy," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(8), pages 913-930, November.
    12. Marco Del Negro & Domenico Giannone & Marc P. Giannoni & Andrea Tambalotti, 2017. "Safety, Liquidity, and the Natural Rate of Interest," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 48(1 (Spring), pages 235-316.
    13. John B. Taylor, 1999. "Monetary Policy Rules," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number tayl99-1.
    14. 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.
    15. repec:zbw:bofrdp:2017_036 is not listed on IDEAS
    16. James A. Kahn & Robert W. Rich, 2006. "Tracking productivity in real time," Current Issues in Economics and Finance, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, vol. 12(Nov).
    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. Wang, Bin & Kwan, Yum K., 2021. "Measuring the natural rates of interest of OECD and BRICS economies: A time varying perspective," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 112(C).
    2. Saeed Zaman, 2021. "A Unified Framework to Estimate Macroeconomic Stars," Working Papers 21-23R2, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, revised 31 May 2024.

    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. Enrico Sergio Levrero, 2021. "Estimates of the Natural Rate of Interest and the Stance of Monetary Policies: A Critical Assessment," International Journal of Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 50(1), pages 5-27, February.
    2. Hasan Engin Duran & Pawe³ Gajewski, 2023. "State-level Taylor rule and monetary policy stress," Equilibrium. Quarterly Journal of Economics and Economic Policy, Institute of Economic Research, vol. 18(1), pages 89-120, March.
    3. Mengheng Li & Irma Hindrayanto, 2018. "Looking for the stars: Estimating the natural rate of interest," Working Paper Series 51, Economics Discipline Group, UTS Business School, University of Technology, Sydney.
    4. Michael T. Kiley, 2024. "Monetary Policy Strategies to Foster Price Stability and a Strong Labor Market," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2024-033, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    5. Ruch,Franz Ulrich, 2021. "Neutral Real Interest Rates in Inflation Targeting Emerging and Developing Economies," Policy Research Working Paper Series 9711, The World Bank.
    6. 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.
    7. Luo, Yulei & Nie, Jun & Young, Eric, 2015. "Robust Permanent Income in General Equilibrium," MPRA Paper 63985, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Levrero, Enrico Sergio, 2022. "The Taylor Rule and its Aftermath: Elements for an Interpretation along Classical-Keynesian lines," Centro Sraffa Working Papers CSWP59, Centro di Ricerche e Documentazione "Piero Sraffa".
    9. Jens H. E. Christensen & Glenn D. Rudebusch, 2019. "A New Normal for Interest Rates? Evidence from Inflation-Indexed Debt," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 101(5), pages 933-949, December.
    10. Brand, Claus & Goy, Gavin W & Lemke, Wolfgang, 2020. "Natural rate chimera and bond pricing reality," VfS Annual Conference 2020 (Virtual Conference): Gender Economics 224546, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    11. Fiedler, Salomon & Gern, Klaus-Jürgen & Jannsen, Nils & Wolters, Maik H., 2019. "Growth prospects, the natural interest rate, and monetary policy," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 13, pages 1-34.
    12. James D. Hamilton & Ethan S. Harris & Jan Hatzius & Kenneth D. West, 2016. "The Equilibrium Real Funds Rate: Past, Present, and Future," IMF Economic Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Monetary Fund, vol. 64(4), pages 660-707, November.
    13. Orphanides, Athanasios & Williams, John C., 2007. "Robust monetary policy with imperfect knowledge," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(5), pages 1406-1435, July.
    14. Stephen G. Cecchetti & Tommaso Mancini-Griffoli & Machiko Narita & Ratna Sahay, 2020. "US or Domestic Monetary Policy: Which Matters More for Financial Stability?," IMF Economic Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Monetary Fund, vol. 68(1), pages 35-65, March.
    15. Nikolsko-Rzhevskyy, Alex & Papell, David H. & Prodan, Ruxandra, 2021. "Policy Rules and Economic Performance," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).
    16. Rudebusch, Glenn D, 2005. "Assessing the Lucas Critique in Monetary Policy Models," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 37(2), pages 245-272, April.
    17. Akcay, Mustafa & Elyasiani, Elyas, 2021. "The link between the federal funds rate and banking system distress: An empirical investigation," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).
    18. Marx, Magali & Mojon, Benoît & Velde, François R., 2021. "Why have interest rates fallen far below the return on capital?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 124(S), pages 57-76.
    19. Andrés González & Segio Ocampo & Julián Pérez & Diego Rodríguez, 2013. "Output Gap and Neutral Interest Measures of Colombia," Monetaria, CEMLA, vol. 0(2), pages 231-286, July-Dece.
    20. Zhang, Ren & Martínez-García, Enrique & Wynne, Mark A. & Grossman, Valerie, 2021. "Ties that bind: Estimating the natural rate of interest for small open economies," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 113(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Natural real interest rate; Markov switching; Monetary policy rules;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C24 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Truncated and Censored Models; Switching Regression Models; Threshold Regression Models
    • E47 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Forecasting and Simulation: Models and Applications
    • E58 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Central Banks and Their Policies

    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:pal:buseco:v:53:y:2018:i:2:d:10.1057_s11369-018-0077-1. 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.palgrave-journals.com/ .

    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.