IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wpa/wuwpma/0303002.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Taylor Rules and Interest Rate Smoothing in the US and EMU

Author

Listed:
  • Efrem Castelnuovo

    (Bocconi University)

Abstract

In this paper we estimate simple Taylor rules paying a particular attention to interest rate smoothing. Following English, Nelson, and Sack (2002), we employ a model in first differences to gain some insights on the presence and significance of the degree of partial ad- justment. Moreover, we estimate a nested model to take both interest rate smoothing and serially correlated deviations from various Taylor rate prescriptions into account. Our findings suggest that the lagged interest rate enters the Taylor rule in its own right, and may very well coexist with a serially correlated policy shock. Asymmetric preferences on the output gap level and financial indicators turn out to be impor- tant factors to understand Greenspan’s policy conduct. By contrast, our findings support standard regressors for the ’European’ Taylor rule.

Suggested Citation

  • Efrem Castelnuovo, 2003. "Taylor Rules and Interest Rate Smoothing in the US and EMU," Macroeconomics 0303002, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:wpa:wuwpma:0303002
    Note: Type of Document - Acrobat PDF; prepared on HP PC; to print on HP; pages: 33; figures: included
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://econwpa.ub.uni-muenchen.de/econ-wp/mac/papers/0303/0303002.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Favero Carlo A. & Milani Fabio, 2005. "Parameter Instability, Model Uncertainty and the Choice of Monetary Policy," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 5(1), pages 1-33, February.
    2. Kenneth Rogoff, 1985. "The Optimal Degree of Commitment to an Intermediate Monetary Target," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 100(4), pages 1169-1189.
    3. Taylor, John B., 1999. "The robustness and efficiency of monetary policy rules as guidelines for interest rate setting by the European central bank," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(3), pages 655-679, June.
    4. Domenech, Rafael & Ledo, Mayte & Taguas, David, 2002. "Some new results on interest rate rules in EMU and in the US," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 54(4), pages 431-446.
    5. Ben S. Bernanke & Mark Gertler, 2001. "Should Central Banks Respond to Movements in Asset Prices?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(2), pages 253-257, May.
    6. Wieland, Volker, 2000. "Monetary policy, parameter uncertainty and optimal learning," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(1), pages 199-228, August.
    7. Söderlind, Paul & Söderström, Ulf & Vredin, Anders, 2003. "Taylor Rules and the Predictability of Interest Rates," Working Paper Series 147, Sveriges Riksbank (Central Bank of Sweden).
    8. Thomas Mayer, 2003. "The macroeconomic Loss Function: a Critical Note," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 10(6), pages 347-349.
    9. Kevin J. Lansing, 2002. "Real-time estimation of trend output and the illusion of interest rate smoothing," Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, pages 17-34.
    10. Richard Clarida & Jordi Galí & Mark Gertler, 2000. "Monetary Policy Rules and Macroeconomic Stability: Evidence and Some Theory," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 115(1), pages 147-180.
    11. Gerlach, Stefan & Smets, Frank, 1999. "Output gaps and monetary policy in the EMU area1," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 43(4-6), pages 801-812, April.
    12. Bernanke, Ben & Gertler, Mark & Gilchrist, Simon, 1996. "The Financial Accelerator and the Flight to Quality," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 78(1), pages 1-15, February.
    13. 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.
    14. Stephen G. Cecchetti & Alfonso Flores-Lagunes & Stefan Krause, 2006. "Has Monetary Policy become more Efficient? a Cross-Country Analysis," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 116(511), pages 408-433, April.
    15. Caplin, Andrew & Leahy, John, 1996. "Monetary Policy as a Process of Search," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 86(4), pages 689-702, September.
    16. Sharon Kozicki, 1999. "How useful are Taylor rules for monetary policy?," Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, vol. 84(Q II), pages 5-33.
    17. Guha, Debashis & Hiris, Lorene, 2002. "The aggregate credit spread and the business cycle," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 11(2), pages 219-227.
    18. Gabriel Srour, 2001. "Why Do Central Banks Smooth Interest Rates?," Staff Working Papers 01-17, Bank of Canada.
    19. 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.
    20. Arturo Estrella & Frederic S. Mishkin, 1999. "Rethinking the Role of NAIRU in Monetary Policy: Implications of Model Formulation and Uncertainty," NBER Chapters, in: Monetary Policy Rules, pages 405-436, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    21. 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.
    22. Cecchetti, Stephen G, 2000. "Making Monetary Policy: Objectives and Rules," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 16(4), pages 43-59, Winter.
    23. Christiano, Lawrence J. & Eichenbaum, Martin & Evans, Charles L., 1999. "Monetary policy shocks: What have we learned and to what end?," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & M. Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 2, pages 65-148, Elsevier.
    24. Gerlach, Stefan & Schnabel, Gert, 2000. "The Taylor rule and interest rates in the EMU area," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 67(2), pages 165-171, May.
    25. Gert Peersman & Frank Smets, 1999. "The Taylor Rule: A Useful Monetary Policy Benchmark for the Euro Area?," International Finance, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 2(1), pages 85-116, April.
    26. Clarida, Richard & Gali, Jordi & Gertler, Mark, 1998. "Monetary policy rules in practice Some international evidence," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 42(6), pages 1033-1067, June.
    27. repec:cup:macdyn:v:6:y:2002:i:1:p:85-110 is not listed on IDEAS
    28. Athanasios Orphanides, 2001. "Monetary Policy Rules Based on Real-Time Data," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(4), pages 964-985, September.
    29. Favero, Carlo A., 2006. "Taylor rules and the term structure," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(7), pages 1377-1393, October.
    30. Gerlach-Kristen Petra, 2004. "Interest-Rate Smoothing: Monetary Policy Inertia or Unobserved Variables?," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 4(1), pages 1-19, March.
    31. Orphanides, Athanasios, 2003. "Monetary policy evaluation with noisy information," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(3), pages 605-631, April.
    32. Efrem Castelnuovo & Paolo Surico, 2004. "Model Uncertainty, Optimal Monetary Policy and the Preferences of the Fed," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 51(1), pages 105-126, February.
    33. Rudebusch, Glenn D. & Svensson, Lars E. O., 2002. "Eurosystem monetary targeting: Lessons from U.S. data," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 46(3), pages 417-442, March.
    34. Ben S. Bernanke & Mark Gertler, 1995. "Inside the Black Box: The Credit Channel of Monetary Policy Transmission," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 9(4), pages 27-48, Fall.
    35. John B. Taylor, 1999. "Monetary Policy Rules," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number tayl99-1.
    36. Onatski, Alexei & Stock, James H., 2002. "Robust Monetary Policy Under Model Uncertainty In A Small Model Of The U.S. Economy," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 6(1), pages 85-110, February.
    37. L. Wade, 1988. "Review," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 58(1), pages 99-100, July.
    38. Michael Woodford, 1999. "Optimal Monetary Policy Inertia," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 67(s1), pages 1-35.
    39. Söderström, Ulf, 1999. "Should central banks be more aggressive?," Working Paper Series 84, Sveriges Riksbank (Central Bank of Sweden).
    40. Ulf Söderström, 2002. "Monetary Policy with Uncertain Parameters," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 104(1), pages 125-145, March.
    41. Alex Cukierman & Anton Muscatelli, 2001. "Do Central Banks have Precautionary Demands for Expansions and for Price Stability?," Working Papers 2002_4, Business School - Economics, University of Glasgow, revised Mar 2002.
    42. Surico, Paolo, 2003. "US Monetary Policy Rules: the Case for Asymmetric Preferences," Royal Economic Society Annual Conference 2003 199, Royal Economic Society.
    43. 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.
    44. McCallum, Bennett T., 1999. "Issues in the design of monetary policy rules," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & M. Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 23, pages 1483-1530, Elsevier.
    45. Glenn D. Rudebusch, 2001. "Is The Fed Too Timid? Monetary Policy In An Uncertain World," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 83(2), pages 203-217, May.
    46. Stephen G. Cecchetti & Hans Genberg & Sushil Wadhwani, 2002. "Asset Prices in a Flexible Inflation Targeting Framework," NBER Working Papers 8970, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    47. Alan S. Blinder, 1997. "Distinguished Lecture on Economics in Government: What Central Bankers Could Learn from Academics--And Vice Versa," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 11(2), pages 3-19, Spring.
    48. Bernanke, Ben S & Blinder, Alan S, 1988. "Credit, Money, and Aggregate Demand," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 78(2), pages 435-439, May.
    49. Gerdesmeier, Dieter & Roffia, Barbara, 2003. "Empirical estimates of reaction functions for the euro area," Working Paper Series 206, European Central Bank.
    50. Alex Cukierman & V. Anton Muscatelli, 2002. "Do Central Banks have Precautionary Demands for Expansions and for Price Stability? - Theory and Evidence," CESifo Working Paper Series 764, CESifo.
    51. Sack, Brian, 2000. "Does the fed act gradually? A VAR analysis," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(1), pages 229-256, August.
    52. repec:bla:manchs:v:67:y:1999:i:0:p:1-35 is not listed on IDEAS
    53. Alan S. Blinder, 1999. "Central Banking in Theory and Practice," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262522608, December.
    54. Benjamin M. Friedman, 2000. "Monetary Policy," NBER Working Papers 8057, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    55. Perez, Stephen J., 2001. "Looking back at forward-looking monetary policy," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 53(5), pages 509-521.
    56. Carlo A. Favero, "undated". "Parameters´ Instability, Model Uncertainty and Optimal Monetary Policy," Working Papers 196, IGIER (Innocenzo Gasparini Institute for Economic Research), Bocconi University.
    57. Kydland, Finn E & Prescott, Edward C, 1977. "Rules Rather Than Discretion: The Inconsistency of Optimal Plans," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 85(3), pages 473-491, June.
    58. Jeffery D. Amato & Thomas Laubach, 1999. "The value of interest rate smoothing : how the private sector helps the Federal Reserve," Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, vol. 84(Q III), pages 47-64.
    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. Nicoletta Batini & Paul Levine & Joseph Pearlman, 2003. "Indeterminacy with inflation-forecast-cased rules in a two-bloc model," Proceedings, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    2. Batini, Nicoletta & Justiniano, Alejandro & Levine, Paul & Pearlman, Joseph, 2006. "Robust inflation-forecast-based rules to shield against indeterminacy," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 30(9-10), pages 1491-1526.
    3. Charles Evans & Jonas Fisher & Francois Gourio & Spencer Krane, 2015. "Risk Management for Monetary Policy Near the Zero Lower Bound," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 46(1 (Spring), pages 141-219.
    4. Nicoletta Batini & Paul Levine, 2004. "Robust Control Rules to Shield Against Indeterminacy," Computing in Economics and Finance 2004 339, Society for Computational Economics.
    5. Emanuele Ciola & Enrico Turco & Andrea Gurgone & Davide Bazzana & Sergio Vergalli & Francesco Menoncin, 2022. "Charging the macroeconomy with an energy sector: an agent-based model," Working Papers 2022.09, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei.
    6. Ciola, Emanuele & Turco, Enrico & Gurgone, Andrea & Bazzana, Davide & Vergalli, Sergio & Menoncin, Francesco, 2023. "Enter the MATRIX model:a Multi-Agent model for Transition Risks with application to energy shocks," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 146(C).
    7. C. Moons & A. Van Poeck, 2007. "Does one size fit all? A Taylor-rule based analysis of monetary policy for current and future EMU members," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 40(2), pages 193-199.
    8. Leon, Costas, 2006. "The Taylor rule: can it be supported by the data?," MPRA Paper 1650, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    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. Efrem Castelnuovo, 2002. "Squeezing the Interest Rate Smoothing Weight with a Hybrid Expectations Model," Macroeconomics 0211006, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Efrem Castelnuovo, 2004. "Describing the Fed's conduct with simple Taylor rules: is interest rate smoothing important?," Money Macro and Finance (MMF) Research Group Conference 2003 12, Money Macro and Finance Research Group.
    3. Efrem Castelnuovo, 2006. "Describing The Fed’S Conduct With Taylor Rules: Is Interest Rate Smoothing Important?," The IUP Journal of Monetary Economics, IUP Publications, vol. 0(3), pages 57-77, August.
    4. Glenn D. Rudebusch, 2006. "Monetary Policy Inertia: Fact or Fiction?," International Journal of Central Banking, International Journal of Central Banking, vol. 2(4), December.
    5. 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.
    6. Lars E. O. Svensson, 2003. "What Is Wrong with Taylor Rules? Using Judgment in Monetary Policy through Targeting Rules," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 41(2), pages 426-477, June.
    7. repec:bla:ecnote:v:32:y:2003:i:3:p:335-359 is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Driffill, John & Rotondi, Zeno, 2007. "Inertia in Taylor Rules," CEPR Discussion Papers 6570, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    9. Robert Tchaidze & Alina Carare, 2004. "The Use and Abuse of Taylor Rules: How precisely can we estimate them?," Econometric Society 2004 Latin American Meetings 132, Econometric Society.
    10. Fabio Milani, 2008. "Monetary Policy With A Wider Information Set: A Bayesian Model Averaging Approach," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 55(1), pages 1-30, February.
    11. Castelnuovo, Efrem & Paolo Surico, 2003. "Why are Federal Funds Rates so Smooth?," Royal Economic Society Annual Conference 2003 39, Royal Economic Society.
    12. Travaglini, Guido, 2007. "The U.S. Dynamic Taylor Rule With Multiple Breaks, 1984-2001," MPRA Paper 3419, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 15 Jun 2007.
    13. 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.
    14. Stephan Sauer & Jan‐Egbert Sturm, 2007. "Using Taylor Rules to Understand European Central Bank Monetary Policy," German Economic Review, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 8(3), pages 375-398, August.
    15. Lansing, Kevin J. & Trehan, Bharat, 2003. "Forward-looking behavior and optimal discretionary monetary policy," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 81(2), pages 249-256, November.
    16. Marc P. Giannoni, 2007. "Robust optimal monetary policy in a forward-looking model with parameter and shock uncertainty," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 22(1), pages 179-213.
    17. Lars E. O. Svensson, 2001. "Price Stability as a Target for Monetary Policy: Defining and Maintaining Price Stability," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Deutsche Bundesbank (ed.), The Monetary Transmission Process, chapter 2, pages 60-111, Palgrave Macmillan.
    18. Luís, Pacheco, 2004. "Asset Prices and Monetary Policy in the Euro Area: a tentative model," MPRA Paper 6579, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    19. Stephan Sauer & Jan-Egbert Sturm, 2003. "Using Taylor Rules to Understand ECB Monetary Policy," CESifo Working Paper Series 1110, CESifo.
    20. Gnabo, Jean-Yves & Moccero, Diego Nicolas, 2015. "Risk management, nonlinearity and aggressiveness in monetary policy: The case of the US Fed," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 281-294.
    21. 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.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Taylor rules omitted variables serial correlation interest rate smoothing;

    JEL classification:

    • E4 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates
    • E5 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:wpa:wuwpma:0303002. 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: EconWPA The email address of this maintainer does not seem to be valid anymore. Please ask EconWPA to update the entry or send us the correct address (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://econwpa.ub.uni-muenchen.de .

    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.