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Understanding the Aspects of Federal Reserve Forward Guidance

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  • Kurt Graden Lunsford

Abstract

This paper studies the effects of Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) forward guidance language. I estimate two policy surprises at FOMC meetings: a change in the current federal funds rate and an orthogonal change in the expected path of the federal funds rate. From February 2000 to June 2003, the FOMC only gave forward guidance about risks to the economic outlook, and a surprise increase in the expected federal funds rate path had expansionary effects. This is consistent with models of central bank information effects, where a positive economic outlook causes private agents to revise up their expectations for the economy. From August 2003 to May 2006, the FOMC also gave forward guidance about policy inclinations, and a surprise increase in the federal funds rate path had contractionary effects. These results are consistent with standard macroeconomic models of forward guidance. Overall, the effects of forward guidance depend on the FOMC?s choice to use one or both of the economic-outlook and policy-inclination aspects of forward guidance.

Suggested Citation

  • Kurt Graden Lunsford, 2018. "Understanding the Aspects of Federal Reserve Forward Guidance," Working Papers (Old Series) 1815, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland.
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedcwp:1815
    DOI: 10.26509/frbc-wp-201815
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    Cited by:

    1. Darmouni, Olivier & Geisecke, Oliver & Rodnyanky, Alexander, 2019. "The Bond Lending Channel of Monetary Policy," MPRA Paper 95141, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Lukas Hoesch & Barbara Rossi & Tatevik Sekhposyan, 2023. "Has the Information Channel of Monetary Policy Disappeared? Revisiting the Empirical Evidence," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 15(3), pages 355-387, July.
    3. Aeimit Lakdawala, 2019. "Decomposing the effects of monetary policy using an external instruments SVAR," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 34(6), pages 934-950, September.
    4. Bu, Chunya & Rogers, John & Wu, Wenbin, 2021. "A unified measure of Fed monetary policy shocks," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 331-349.
    5. Altavilla, Carlo & Brugnolini, Luca & Gürkaynak, Refet S. & Motto, Roberto & Ragusa, Giuseppe, 2019. "Measuring euro area monetary policy," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 162-179.
    6. Daniel J. Lewis & Christos Makridis & Karel Mertens, 2019. "Do Monetary Policy Announcements Shift Household Expectations?," Staff Reports 897, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    7. Stavrakeva, Vania & Tang, Jenny, 2019. "The Dollar During the Great Recession: US Monetary Policy Signaling and The Flight To Safety," CEPR Discussion Papers 14034, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    8. Gareth Anderson & Ambrogio Cesa-Bianchi, 2020. "Crossing the Credit Channel: Credit Spreads and Firm Heterogeneity," Discussion Papers 2005, Centre for Macroeconomics (CFM).
    9. Pascal Paul, 2020. "The Time-Varying Effect of Monetary Policy on Asset Prices," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 102(4), pages 690-704, October.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Central Bank Communication; Event Study; Federal Funds Futures; information effects; Monetary Policy;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E43 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Interest Rates: Determination, Term Structure, and Effects
    • E44 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Financial Markets and the Macroeconomy
    • 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
    • G14 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Information and Market Efficiency; Event Studies; Insider Trading

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