Master of Arts / Department of Economics / William F. Blankenau / The financial crisis that began in the summer of 2007 has greatly tested the abilities of central banks to counter financial instability and economic slowdown through traditional monetary policy. This paper will examine in detail the monetary response of both the Federal Reserve Bank of the United States (Fed) and the Bank of England to the turmoil in the financial markets. The Bank of England, which adopted inflation targeting after the Black Wednesday crisis in 1992, and the Fed, which has no such stated policy, allows us to compare two different monetary regimes in the aftermath of a crisis. To counter the financial crisis the Bank of England resorted to unconventional monetary policies that included expansion of liquidity easing operations and a policy of quantitative easing through purchase of debt securities. The Fed also made use of both traditional tools as well as more innovative measures to combat liquidity concerns in the financial market. A multitude of new programs was initiated by the Fed to supply liquidity to susceptible lending institutions and lower the spreads on commercial loans and securities. Overall, we find that the actions of the Bank of England and the Fed were effective in restoring stability to financial markets and preventing a prolonged economic depression. Further, the Bank of England's inflation targeting framework did not hinder its ability to respond to the crisis and there was no major divergence in the policy actions of the two central banks.

Tools of monetary policy of the Czech national bank - summary Zdeněk Zůna The purpose of my thesis is to analyze main factors affecting economic development of Czech Republic and describe in detail the instruments of monetary policy including reasons and consequences of their use. Author chose chronological interpretation with emphasis on inclusion in historical context. Introductory chapter defines the concept of monetary policy and outlines its types and goals. Along with the second and the third chapter, it creates necessary theoretical basis for the practical part. It explains why monetary policy is given to the hands of central banks as independent institutions, and why is price stability in most countries the only main objective of monetary policy. We also get a basic idea of what monetary expansions and monetary restrictions are and what are their consequences. Second chapter deals with process of monetary policy. It describes strengths and weaknesses of different strategies and shows the chain of economic links, through which the instruments used affect final goals. In addition, it presents some problems of monetary policy and discusses the role of time lags. Third chapter looks at the tools of monetary policy in general. Beside basic characteristics, it describes, how they influence monetary base,...

In Korea, an inflation targeting (IT) regime was adopted in the aftermath of the Korean currency crisis of 1997–1998. At that time, the Bank of Korea (BOK) shifted the instrument of monetary policy from monetary aggregates to interest rates. Recently, central bank policymakers have confronted more uncertainties than ever before when deciding their policy interest rates. In this monetary policy environment, it is worth exploring whether the BOK has kept a conservative posture in moving the Korean call rate target, the equivalent of the US Federal Funds rate target since the implementation of an interest rate-oriented monetary policy. Together with this, the global financial crisis (GFC) of 2007–2009 provoked by the US sub-prime mortgage market recalls the following question: should central banks pre-emptively react to a sharp increase in asset prices? Historical episodes indicate that boom-bust cycles in asset prices, in particular, house prices, can be damaging to the economy. In Korea, house prices have been evolving under uncertainties, and in the process house-price bubbles have been formed. Therefore, in recent years, central bankers and academia in Korea have paid great attention to fluctuations in asset prices. In this context, the aims of this thesis are: (i) to set up theoretical and empirical models of monetary policy under uncertainty; (ii) to examine the effect of uncertainty on the operation of monetary policy since the adoption of interest rate-oriented policy; and (iii) to investigate whether gradual adjustment in policy rates can be explained by uncertainty in Korea. Another important aim is (iv) to examine whether house-price fluctuations be taken into account in formulating monetary policy. The main findings of this thesis are summarised as follows. Firstly, as in advanced countries, the four stylised facts regarding the policy interest rate path are found in Korea: infrequent changes in policy rates; successive changes in the same direction; asymmetric adjustments in terms of the size of interest-rate changes for continuation and reversal periods; and a long pause before reversals in policy rates. These patterns of policy rates (i.e., interest-rate smoothing) characterised the central bank‘s reaction to inflation and the output gap as being less aggressive than the optimising central bank behavior would predict (Chapter 3). Secondly, uncertainty may provide a rationale for a smoother path of the policy interest rate in Korea. In particular, since the introduction of the interest rate-oriented monetary policy, the actual call money rates have shown to be similar to the optimal rate path under parameter uncertainty. Gradual movements in the policy rates do not necessarily indicate that the central bank has an interest-rate smoothing incentive. Uncertainty about the dynamic structure of the economy, which is dubbed ‗parameter uncertainty‘, could account for a considerable portion of the observed gradual movements in policy interest rates (Chapter 4). Thirdly, it is found that the greater the output-gap uncertainty, the smaller the output-gap response coefficients in the optimal policy rules, and in a similar vein, the greater inflation uncertainty, the smaller the inflation response coefficients. The optimal policy rules derived by using data without errors showed the large size of the output-gap and inflation response coefficients. This finding confirms that data uncertainty can be one of sources explaining the reasons why monetary policymakers react less aggressively in setting their interest rate instrument (Chapter 5). Finally, we found that house prices conveyed some useful information on conditions such as possible financial instability and future inflation in Korea, and the house-price shock differed from other shocks to the macroeconomy in that it had persistent impacts on the economy, consequently provoking much larger economic volatility. Empirical simulations showed that the central bank could reduce its loss values in terms of economic volatility, resulting in promoting overall economic stability when it responds more directly to fluctuations in house prices. This finding provides the reason why the central bank should give more attention to house-price fluctuations when conducting monetary policy (Chapter 6).

O objetivo desse trabalho é, a partir de um modelo estrutural de economia aberta novokeynesiano, determinar se as flutuações econômicas no Brasil são resultados de algumas poucas fontes principais de choques ou de muitas fontes diferentes de choques bem como as respostas dinâmicas que estes geram nas flutuações econômicas, utilizando-se da análise de decomposição de erros de Cholesky. Para isso, a analise feita nesse trabalho inicia-se com a abordagem teórica do regime de metas de inflação, situando o regime dentro do novo consenso macroeconômico. Então, a abordagem empírica para o caso brasileiro é realizada estimando-se um modelo de vetores autorregressivos (VAR) contemplando proxies que melhor representam as principais variáveis macroeconômicas brasileiras, sendo essas escolhidas a partir do estudo dos trabalhos empíricos que trataram da política monetária no Brasil em período recente. A análise dos efeitos dos choques é realizada por meio das funções de resposta ao impulso e da decomposição do erro de previsão. Os principais resultados empíricos obtidos por esse trabalho sugerem que: i) a taxa de juros se mostra como um importante instrumento para a política monetária, sendo utilizada pelo Banco Central para conter pressões sobre o hiato do produto e da inflação; ii) surpresas inflacionárias não trazem ganhos temporários em termos de um produto maior do que o nível natural; iii) a taxa de inflação mostra uma razoável persistência; iv) a taxa de inflação mostrou-se sensível a variações no câmbio. / The mean goal of this dissertation is to determine if the Brazilian output fluctuation is due to few mean sources of shocks or to several sources of shocks, using Cholesky error decomposition analysis. In order to do it, the analysis starts with a theoric approach for the inflation targeting regime, placing it into the new macroeconomic consensus. After that, the empirical approach for the Brazilian case is done by estimating an autoregressive model using proxies that best represent the mean Brazilian macroeconomic variables. These variables were chosen after a careful study of the empirical Brazilian monetary policy working papers done recently. The analysis of the shocks effects is done through both impulse-response functions and error forecast decomposition. The mean results suggest that: i) the interest rate is an important monetary policy tool and its being used by the Brazilian Central Bank in order to avoid pressures on both inflation and output gap; ii) inflation shocks does not bring gains in terms of higher product in the sort run; iii) the inflation rate has a reasonable degree of persistence; iv) the inflation rate is sensitive to exchange rate changes.

L'indépendance des banques centrales, thème qui galvanisa les économistes et les exécutifs macro-économiques dans le dernier quart du XXe siècle, a été longue à se concrétiser au Royaume-Uni: ce n'est qu'en 1997 que la Banque d'Angleterre, pourtant l'une des plus anciennes et prestigieuses banques centrales du monde, acquit le droit de mener la politique monétaire sans interférence gouvernementale. La genèse de cette réforme offre une perspective précieuse sur le système politique et économique britannique, sur ses évolutions récentes et les influences étrangères qui les favorisèrent: celle des Etats-Unis fut déterminante. L'indépendance de la Banque d'Angleterre a symbolisé la fin du consensus macro-économique qui prévalait dans la mère-patrie du Keynésianisme depuis la fin de la Seconde Guerre mondiale: elle consacrait la priorité donnée à la lutte contre l'inflation. Ce changement de perspective nécessita un aggiornamento au sein des grands partis de gouvernement, chez les Conservateurs puis chez les Travaillistes. L'autre entrave à l'indépendance de la BoE tenait au système institutionnel britannique, basé sur la suprématie du parlement de Westminster. Le New Labour, qui mit en oeuvre l'indépendance de la BoE, sut contourner cet obstacle, tout en faisant de cette réforme le symbole de sa nouvelle crédibilité économique. / Central bank independence, a leading theme among economists and macro-economic executives during the last quarter of the 20th century, was slow to materialize in the U.K.: only in 1997 was the Bank of England, one of the world's oldest and most prestigious central banks, granted the right to set monetary policy without interference from the government. The genesis of this reform gives a precious insight into the British political and economic system, its transformations and the foreign influences that brought them along: The U.S. played a key role in that process. The BoE independence embodies the demise of the macro-economic consensus that reigned supreme in Keynes' motherland since the end of World War II: it sealed a change in economic priorities that made inflation the No1 enemy. This required an aggiornamento within leading political parties, whether Conservative or Labour. The other obstacle on the way to an independent Bank of England was institutional, as such a reform clashed with the supremacy of the Westminster Parliament. New Labour, which set the Bank of England free, displayed much skill in clearing that hurdle, while making that reform the symbol of its new economic credibility.

ABSTRACT INFLATION TARGETING AND FISCAL DOMINANCE: EVIDENCE FROM TURKEY SEL, TUgBA M.Sc., Department of Economics Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Erdal &Ouml / zmen September 2007, 60 pages. This study investigates the significance of fiscal dominance for an inflation targeting regime in the context of the recent Turkish experience. To this end, capital flows and country risk equations are estimated for the Turkish monthly data pertaining the inflation targeting regime implementation period. The results from the capital flows models based on portfolio approach strongly suggest that the real effective exchange rates in Turkey during the period are determined by foreign interest rates and the Emerging Markets Bond Index (EMBI) but not by the domestic interest rates in the long run. This supports the view that the risk premium channel dominates the standard portfolio channel in the determination of real exchange rates in Turkey during the period. The country risk of Turkey, proxied by the EMBI spread in the long run is determined by risk appetite of foreign investors and domestic variables including real debt stock, real consolidated budget balance, international gross reserves, current account deficits and credit ratings. All these results are found to be important manifestations of the presence fiscal dominance in Turkey. Consequently, contrary to the postulations of the conventional monetary policy transmission mechanism, interest rate increases to cope with inflationary pressures may lead to an inflation acceleration, rather than the reverse.

This thesis analyzes the connection between monetary policies and belief-driven fluctuation, and discusses the effects of monetary policies in a small open economy. We construct an endogenous growth model that introduces the role of money into the production function and allows elastic labor supply. In departing from the findings proposed by Benhabib and Farmer (1994), we find that belief-driven fluctuation can be easily encouraged, as long as there is lower increasing return to scale under money growth rate targeting. However, if there is a higher level of increasing return to scale, the increase of the growth rate of nominal money supply will only increase the economic growth rate temporarily, and money is super-neutral in the long run. More importantly, we show that under inflation rate targeting, the central bank will eliminate possibilities of belief-driven fluctuation in the small open economy, but lose the efficacy of monetary policy on the short-term economic growth at the same time.

Financial dollarization, defined as the substantial presence of foreign currency denominated assets and liabilities in the balance sheets of the main sectors of an economy, is a widespread phenomenon among developing economies, especially in Latin America and Turkey. Since financial dollarization often causes financial fragility and limits the effectiveness of monetary policy, the causes and consequences of it and dedollarization strategies have been placed at the forefront of policy debates especially in developing countries. The purpose of this study is to analyse the determinants of corporate sector asset and liability dollarization in ten Latin American countries (Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Mexico, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela) and Turkey for the period 1990-2001. To this end, this study considers the effects of monetary policy stance (exchange rate flexibility and adoption of a de facto inflation targeting regime), institutional structure (governance) and macroeconomic stance variables (volatilities of inflation and real effective exchange rates) on financial dollarization. The results based on panel data estimations suggest that high and volatile inflation and depreciation of domestic currency induce a switch to dollar denominated assets and liabilities. Furthermore, exchange rate regime flexibility appears to reduce liability dollarization and encourage asset dollarization. Finally, the empirical analysis supports the hypothesis that adoption of inflation targeting regime and strengthening the institutional structure are significant in decreasing the level of financial dollarization.

Made available in DSpace on 2010-04-20T20:18:31Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 1998-04-06T00:00:00Z / This study presents a new approach for conducting monetary policy: inflation targeting. The survey begins with a historical review of the recent literature on monetary economics from the Phillips Curve and an analysis of the classical options for monetary policy to a careful description of the new framework. The practice experiences of Germany, New Zealand, Canada and England are analyzed. The impacts of the new regime on the inflation inertia process in examined with time series techniques. The study finds that inflation targeting increases monetary discipline and makes monetary policy more coherent and transparent. / Este estudo introduz uma nova abordagem estratégica para a política monetária: o regime de meta de inflação. O trabalho começa com uma revisão da literatura sobre política monetária desde a Curva de Phillips, a seguir os regimes clássicos de política monetária são analisados e se introduz a estrutura conceitual do regime de meta de inflação. As experiências práticas de quatro países (Alemanha, Nova Zelândia, Canadá e Inglaterra) são detalhadamente examinadas. A análise de séries temporais é empregada para comparar o padrão de autoregressividade da inflação sob o novo regime com o período precedente. O estudo aponta o regime de meta de inflação como uma estratégia mais eficiente no longo prazo porque responde melhor aos desafios da teoria e da prática.

O objetivo desse trabalho é, a partir de um modelo estrutural de economia aberta novokeynesiano, determinar se as flutuações econômicas no Brasil são resultados de algumas poucas fontes principais de choques ou de muitas fontes diferentes de choques bem como as respostas dinâmicas que estes geram nas flutuações econômicas, utilizando-se da análise de decomposição de erros de Cholesky. Para isso, a analise feita nesse trabalho inicia-se com a abordagem teórica do regime de metas de inflação, situando o regime dentro do novo consenso macroeconômico. Então, a abordagem empírica para o caso brasileiro é realizada estimando-se um modelo de vetores autorregressivos (VAR) contemplando proxies que melhor representam as principais variáveis macroeconômicas brasileiras, sendo essas escolhidas a partir do estudo dos trabalhos empíricos que trataram da política monetária no Brasil em período recente. A análise dos efeitos dos choques é realizada por meio das funções de resposta ao impulso e da decomposição do erro de previsão. Os principais resultados empíricos obtidos por esse trabalho sugerem que: i) a taxa de juros se mostra como um importante instrumento para a política monetária, sendo utilizada pelo Banco Central para conter pressões sobre o hiato do produto e da inflação; ii) surpresas inflacionárias não trazem ganhos temporários em termos de um produto maior do que o nível natural; iii) a taxa de inflação mostra uma razoável persistência; iv) a taxa de inflação mostrou-se sensível a variações no câmbio. / The mean goal of this dissertation is to determine if the Brazilian output fluctuation is due to few mean sources of shocks or to several sources of shocks, using Cholesky error decomposition analysis. In order to do it, the analysis starts with a theoric approach for the inflation targeting regime, placing it into the new macroeconomic consensus. After that, the empirical approach for the Brazilian case is done by estimating an autoregressive model using proxies that best represent the mean Brazilian macroeconomic variables. These variables were chosen after a careful study of the empirical Brazilian monetary policy working papers done recently. The analysis of the shocks effects is done through both impulse-response functions and error forecast decomposition. The mean results suggest that: i) the interest rate is an important monetary policy tool and its being used by the Brazilian Central Bank in order to avoid pressures on both inflation and output gap; ii) inflation shocks does not bring gains in terms of higher product in the sort run; iii) the inflation rate has a reasonable degree of persistence; iv) the inflation rate is sensitive to exchange rate changes.