Sandra Eickmeier
- 21 April 2010
- WORKING PAPER SERIES - No. 1178Details
- Abstract
- This paper uses a factor-augmented vector autoregressive model (FAVAR) estimated on U.S. data in order to analyze monetary transmission via private sector balance sheets, credit risk spreads and asset markets in an integrated setup and to explore the role of monetary policy in the three imbalances that were observed prior to the global financial crisis: high house price inflation, strong private debt growth and low credit risk spreads. The results suggest that (i) monetary policy shocks have a highly significant and persistent effect on house prices, real estate wealth and private sector debt as well as a strong short-lived effect on risk spreads in the money and mortgage markets; (ii) monetary policy shocks have contributed discernibly, but at a late stage to the unsustainable developments in house and credit markets that were observable between 2001 and 2006; (iii) financial shocks have influenced the path of policy rates prior to the crisis, and the feedback effects of financial shocks via lower policy rates on property and credit markets are found to have probably been considerable.
- JEL Code
- E52 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit→Monetary Policy
E44 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Money and Interest Rates→Financial Markets and the Macroeconomy
C3 : Mathematical and Quantitative Methods→Multiple or Simultaneous Equation Models, Multiple Variables
E3 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles
E43 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Money and Interest Rates→Interest Rates: Determination, Term Structure, and Effects
- 25 February 2009
- WORKING PAPER SERIES - No. 1011Details
- Abstract
- We examine the global dimension of inflation in 24 OECD countries between 1980 and 2007 in a traditional Phillips curve framework. We decompose output gaps and changes in unit labor costs into common (or global) and idiosyncratic components using a factor analysis and introduce these components separately in the regression. Unlike previous studies, we allow global forces to affect inflation through (the common part of) domestic demand and supply conditions. Our most important result is that the common component of changes in unit labor costs has a notable impact of inflation. We also find evidence that movements in import price inflation affect CPI inflation while the impact of movements in the common component of the output gap is unclear. A counterfactual experiment illustrates that the common component of unit labor cost changes and non-commodity import price inflation have held down overall inflation in many countries in recent years whereas commodity import price inflation has only raised the short-run volatility of inflation. In analogy to the Phillips curves, we estimate monetary policy rules with common and idiosyncratic components of inflation and the output gap included separately. Central banks have indeed reacted to the global components.
- JEL Code
- E31 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles→Price Level, Inflation, Deflation
F41 : International Economics→Macroeconomic Aspects of International Trade and Finance→Open Economy Macroeconomics
C33 : Mathematical and Quantitative Methods→Multiple or Simultaneous Equation Models, Multiple Variables→Panel Data Models, Spatio-temporal Models
C50 : Mathematical and Quantitative Methods→Econometric Modeling→General