In recent years the New Keynesian framework has become widely used to identify the relationship between monetary policy, inflation, the business cycle and welfare. Most commonly in these models inertia in prices are introduced only through the aggregate supply side which generates a short run non-neutrality of money. This thesis begins with an investigation into the impact of sticky prices on the macroeconomic equilibrium through aggregate demand. We show that in models of price stickiness among differentiated goods aggregate consumption deviates from the conventional Euler equation due to relative price distortions. This has some non-negligible implications: there are additional inflation effects, which enter through aggregate demand, that lower the response of the marginal cost and dampen responses of inflation and output; products' price elasticity of demand affects equilibrium output and inflation dynamics independently of supply factors; monetary policy responses are smoother than in the conventional new Keynesian models, particularly the more competitive are the products markets. In chapter 2 we continue with an investigation into the impact that the aforementioned channel has on welfare and monetary policy under various regimes. Specifically, we compare our results with the benchmark New Keynesian model with a cost channel for alternative levels of competition in the goods market. When the central bank is assumed to follow a Taylor rule we find, contrary to the standard New Keynesian literature, that welfare losses ultimately fall as the goods market becomes more competitive. Furthermore, there are additional adverse implications for welfare coming through an exaggerated stabilisation bias associated with discretionary policy in our model version. A move to optimal commitment implies significant additional gains compared to the standard literature by; eliminating this amplified stabilisation bias and; reducing further the fall in output gap and inflation fluctuations at the time of shock. The final part of this thesis develops a Generalised Taylor economy to include a financial market. This finance sector is characterised by savings contracts to households and loan contracts to firms, both of which are differentiated by the duration for which their interest rate remains fixed. Additionally, a time varying external finance premium on loan rates is introduced through an endogenous probability of firm default. Using break-even conditions we show that the fixed markup on loan rates is dependent on, the expected default risk over the lifetime of the contract, and, spillovers from the unexpected losses of current "locked in" financial contracts that must be accounted for in the zero profit condition of the commercial bank. Our results indicate that inertia in loan and savings rates dampens the responses of monetary policy and the business cycle whilst generating a procylical loan rate spread. In contrast, risk of default amplifies the business cycle and delivers a countercyclical loan rate spread. The overall impact of these two channels on the direction and magnitude of loan rate spreads, spillovers to new contracts and the dynamics of the business cycle, are shown depend on the type of shock hitting the economy.

This dissertation attempts to analyze the impact of transparency and credibility of central banks on financial markets. While the topic of central bank's transparency has been extensively elaborated in literature, the linkage between institutional framework and empirical characteristics of transparency and credibility have not been adequately described. The study aims to overcome this absence and try to quantify transparency and credibility of central banks, as well as to analyze the relationship between them and their effect on interest rates and inflation expectations. The analysis is performed for nine major central banks: the Reserve Bank of Australia, the Bank of Canada, the European Central Bank (ECB), the Bank of Japan, the Reserve Bank of New Zealand, the Sveriges Riksbank, the Swiss National Bank, the Bank of England, and the U.S. Federal Reserve, and three central and eastern European central banks--the National Bank of Poland, the Hungarian National Bank and the Czech National Bank (CNB). The transparency index, based on survey, is constructed for all twelve central banks mentioned above, while measures of transparency and credibility that are derived from financial market instruments are performed only for the ECB, Fed and the CNB. Finally, we analyze the impact of transparency and credibility of the CNB on interest rates and inflation expectations. The analysis shows that central bank transparency has improved substantially in the last decade. The most transparent central banks in our sample are the Sveriges Riksbank and the Czech National Bank, followed by the Bank of England. A range of communication channels that improve the transparency of monetary policy, however, have little impact on central bank credibility. It is primarily policy-makers' verbal comments, monetary policy implementation and clarity that affect the predictability of monetary policy and contribute most to increasing its credibility. Therefore, the main reason of low credibility is confusing communication, which cannot be eliminated even by maximum openness of the central bank. The additional study of the Czech National Bank showed that during the European debt crisis, greater credibility of the CNB reduced the uncertainty in financial market and contributed to efficient formation of private agents' inflation expectations. Moreover, the results of the analysis show that inflation expectations in the Czech Republic are formed rationally, i.e. they are based on the CNB inflation forecast rather than on the actual values of inflation.

Esta tese é composta de três ensaios que avaliam os impactos de choques monetários sobre a economia brasileira. Sob um arcabouço de economia fechada, no primeiro ensaio, intitulado \"Choques antecipados de política monetária: uma investigação para a economia brasileira\", apresentamos o conceito de news shock em política monetária, ao mesmo tempo em que apontamos que tais choques não são tão relevantes para economia nacional quando outros choques antecipados são considerados. No segundo ensaio, intitulado \"Mudanças exógenas e antecipadas na meta de inflação e impactos sobre a economia brasileira\", estudamos como alterações nas percepções dos agentes econômicos em relação à meta de inflação futura do Banco Central explicam flutuações no produto, na inflação e também nas taxas longas de juros. No terceiro ensaio, intitulado \"Forward Guidance do Fed e impactos sobre países emergentes: o caso brasileiro\", avaliamos como sinalizações antecipadas da política monetária norte-americana geram impactos sobre as variáveis endógenas domésticas, em um arcabouço no qual o Brasil é a pequena economia aberta e também tem choque na meta de inflação / This thesis consists of three papers assessing the impact of monetary shocks on the Brazilian economy. Under a closed economy framework, in the first paper, entitled \"Anticipated monetary policy shocks: an investigation for the Brazilian economy\", we present the concept of news shock in monetary policy, at the same time that we point out that such shocks are not as relevant for national economy when other anticipated shocks are considered. The second paper \"Exogenous and anticipated changes to the inflation target and effects on the Brazilian economy\" assesses how changes to perceptions of economic agents regarding future changes to the inflation target explain changes in output, inflation and long-term market interest rates. The third paper, \"Forward Guidance by the Fed and effects on emerging economies: the case of Brazil\" assesses how anticipated changes to U.S. monetary policy affect the domestic endogenous variables, applying a small open economy framework. Brazil is the SOE and also has news shocks at the inflation target

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The thesis consists of two essays on inflation targeting. The hrst essay examines how do centrál banks set their inflation targets. Survey of centrál banks' communication regard-ing the target is presented, theoretical model is developed and finally empirical analysis is conducted on a panel of inflation targeting countries. This pioneering analysis of the topič leads us to conclusion that inflation targets are influenced by more variables than centrál banks admit. In addition to past and foreign inflation, inflation variability and GDP growth we find significant impact of centrál bank credibility and other institutional factors. The short second essay surveys literatúre assessing performance of inflation targeting and outlines perspectives of inflation targeting as a monetary policy framework. The conclusion is that if inflation targeting centrál banks stick to their best practice in transparency and communication and remain open to innovations, inflation targeting will háve a good chance to score well even in the periods of turmoil.

Thesis: Ph. D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Economics, 1976 / Bibliography: leaves 115-121. / by Frederic S. Mishkin. / Ph. D. / Ph. D. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Economics

Besides the introduction and conclusion, this thesis is comprised of six independent chapters. In this thesis we provide an in-sample and out-of-sample assessment of how the South African Reserve Bank (SARB) sets its policy rate, post 2000 inflation targeting regime, in the context of both linear and nonlinear Taylor-type rule models of monetary policy.<p. Chapter 2 provides the theoretical foundations and the case study discussion. The literature has shown that the Taylor (1993) rule has gone through many modifications since the last decade of the 20th century. The modifications of the Taylor rule include interest rate smoothing, backward and forward looking versions, and nonlinear approximations. Furthermore, there has been increasing debate on whether central banks should respond to asset prices and financial variables. Despite some disagreements, economists seem to agree on the role of the financial market in determining inflation and economic performance. As far as South Africa is concerned, a stable financial system is one of the mandates of the central bank. Chapter 3 discusses the research methods used in the thesis. First, the chapter provides an overview on the Hodrick-Prescott Filter used to detrend some series. Second, more focus is oriented on a class of estimators, used in this thesis, called Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) estimators. GMM is important in that it can be applied to several estimation contexts besides the linear model. In fact, GMM can provide a simple alternative to other estimators, especially when it is difficult to write down the maximum likelihood estimator. Chapter 4 is aimed to provide the source of data, to show the transformation made to some of them and to explore the data for preliminary results. The Augmented Dickey- Fuller (ADF), Phillips-Perron (PP), GLS transformed Dickey-Fuller (DFGLS) and Kwiatkowski, et. Al. (KPSS) tests suggest that all the series follow a stationary process. The chapter also reveals that the financial conditions index measured as an equal weight average of its components yields a smallest AIC than other alternative suggested herein. Furthermore, the chapter shows that the models that consider coincident business cycle indicator, rather than industrial production, perform better in terms of goodness of fit. Given the controversial debate on whether central banks should target asset prices for economic stability, chapter 5 investigates whether the SARB pays close attention to asset and financial markets in their policy decisions. The main findings are that the SARB policy-makers pay close attention to the financial conditions index when setting interest rate. In the same chapter, it is also found that nonlinear Taylor rule improves its performance with the advent of the financial crisis, providing the best description of insample SARB interest rate setting behaviour. The 2007-2009 financial crisis witnesses an overall increased reaction to inflation and financial conditions. In addition, the financial crisis saw a shift from output stabilisation to inflation targeting and a shift, from a symmetric policy response to financial conditions, to a more asymmetric response depending on the state of the economy. Although one could have expected that the SARB’s response of monetary policy to output during the crisis to increase, the response has dropped significantly. These results show the concern over the high level of inflation observed during the second semester of 2008.<p. In chapter 6, we test the concept of Opportunistic Approach to monetary policy. The findings support the two features of the opportunistic approach. First, we find that the models that include an intermediate target that reflects the recent history of inflation rather than a simple inflation target improve the fit of the models. Second, the data supports the view that the South African Reserve Bank (SARB) behaves with some degree of non-responsiveness when inflation is within the zone of discretion but react aggressively otherwise. Recursive estimates from the preferred model reveal that overall there has been a subdued reaction to inflation, output and financial conditions amidst the increased economic uncertainty of the 2007-2009 financial crisis. Chapter 7 compares forecast performance of linear and nonlinear monetary policy rules estimated in the two previous chapters but rewritten in their backward looking versions. Recursive forecasts values are computed for 1- to 12-step ahead for the out-of-sample period 2006:01 to 2010:12. For the nonlinear models we use bootstrap method for multi-step ahead forecasts as opposed to point forecasts approach used for linear models. The aim is to evaluate the performance of three competing models in an out of-sample forecasting exercise. Overall ranking reveals the superiority of the nonlinear model that distinguishes between downward and upward movements in the business cycles in closely matching the historical record. As such, forecasting performance tests reveal that the SARB pays particular attention to business cycles movements when setting its policy rate. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2011. / Economics / unrestricted

My work centers on drawing economic insights about the macroeconomy based on disaggregated mechanisms and empirical patterns. In my first chapter, I study technology upgrading in the Chinese manufacturing sector and its dynamics after trade liberalization. I first document that Chinese firms often engage in capital substitution episodes, during which firm labor productivity increases, labor shares drop, and skill intensity increases. A model in which firms adopt new skill-intensive technology through investment in capital upgrading naturally rationalizes these facts, linking capital substitution events to technological change. Empirically, trade liberalization shocks reduce capital substitution at Chinese firms, raising the possibility that trade liberalization may delay short-run growth. I then build a quantitative GE model with heterogeneous firms, capital upgrading, and trade liberalization shocks. After liberalization in the model, strategically delayed capital upgrading by firms pushes technological and consumption gains further into the future, meaningfully expanding the horizon over which trade gains manifest themselves. In the second chapter, I exploit rich data on tens of millions of housing transactions from Zillow to document poor house price growth in manufacturing-heavy regions in the US. The chapter shows that manufacturing shares strongly predict dampened house price growth, mechanically contributing to a rise in housing wealth inequality across regions. However, this price growth difference is particularly strong for lower-priced houses, amplifying inequality within regions as well. Overall, I find that cross-sectional house price inequality has increased by around 10%, with around a third of this increase due to the relative decline of lower-value homes. In the third chapter, I combine empirical tools and structural modeling to measure the effect of monetary policy on consumption through housing. Exploiting quarterly US data, I estimate empirically that a 1% unexpected interest rate shock causes average house prices to drop by about 1.4% in two years. Feeding this empirical response into an incomplete markets model, I find that aggregate consumption shifts by around 0.3% in response to the shock. A lean-against-the-wind monetary policy can stabilize consumption dynamics along a transition path.

This dissertation is a collection of three essays that explore the transmission channels through which the monetary and the exchange rate policy affect the economy. Chapter 1 proposes and investigates the transmission channels through which the ECB's corporate sector purchase program (CSPP) exerted influences on the economy using a data set on the bond issuance and the syndicated loan in European countries. I find the direct effect of the ECB's bond purchase by substantially reducing the issuance spread of the CSPP-eligible bond by 21%. The direct effect led to an increase in the amount of bond issuance by 25% and a reduction in the bank loan demand by the bond issuers by 36% after the CSPP announcement. Moreover, I find the spillover effect following the debt substitution by bond issuers. The banks in closer relationships with the CSPP-eligible bond issuers received more early loan repayment and lost more lending opportunities from the bond-issuer clients. In turn, the banks that have one-standard-deviation more exposure to the CSPP-eligible bond issuers are found to redirect additional loan supply towards the non-bond-issuer corporations by 3%. Chapter 2 stems from the debate on the optimal exchange rate regime for emerging market, which is far from conclusive. In the presence of nominal rigidity, the conventional wisdom for small open economies is that flexible exchange rate regime insulates countries from the adverse effects of external shocks. I develop a small open economy general equilibrium framework that features nominal price rigidity, external debt and the financial accelerator mechanism. The goal is to explore the interaction between exchange rate regimes and external shocks. The counterfactual exercises suggest that the relative strength between financial channel and trade channel plays a crucial role in determining the cost and the benefit of a specific exchange rate regime in an open country. Chapter 3 studies a novel transmission channel for exchange rate policy in emerging markets that acts through financial institutions. According to this “credit-supply channel,” banks in emerging markets fund themselves in U.S. dollars, lend in the local currency, and bear foreign exchange risk if hedging is imperfect. This currency mismatch exposes banks to exchange rate fluctuations and makes economies vulnerable to adverse global financial conditions. Using loan level data in Taiwan during 2012-15, I provide evidence that the effect of depreciation on credit supply is contractionary. Banks with higher net USD liabilities cut lending more and were less likely to renew loans to firms with which they had pre-existing relationships. In turn, firms with greater dependence on exposed banks hardly switched to alternative funding sources and disproportionately decreased investment and employment as compared to other firms that relied less on these banks. I find that the credit-supply effects of depreciation on investment and employment are both economically and statistically significant.

This dissertation is a collection of three essays on the monetary and fiscal stabilization policies. Grounded in the framework of the New Keynesian model, they combine both theoretical modeling and quantitative analysis, taking into account the considerations from behavioral macroeconomics and global supply chains. Chapter 1 considers both short-term effects and long-run consequences of alternative monetary and fiscal policies under an assumption of bounded rationality. Most of the existing analyses of the interaction between monetary and fiscal policy in the monetary literature often turn crucially on assumptions that are made about outcomes far in the future, sometimes infinitely far. This is a problematic feature of rational-expectations analyses, given the limited basis for assumptions about the distant future. By relaxing this problematic assumption regarding long-expectation, while keeping other parts as close as possible to the standard New Keynesian model, I take the approach of finite forward planning to study the interplay of fiscal transfer policies and monetary policy. In particular, this approach assumes that explicit forward planning extends only a finite distance into the future, with anticipated situations at that horizon evaluated using a value function learned from past experience. Such an approach makes announcements of future policies relevant, but avoids the debates about equilibrium selection that plague rational-expectations analyses. The combined monetary-fiscal regimes that result in stable long-run dynamics are characterized, and the effectiveness of temporary changes in either type of policy as a source of short-run demand stimulus is analyzed. The effectiveness of a coordinated change in monetary and fiscal policy is shown to be greatest when decision makers' degree of foresight is intermediate in range (average planning horizons on the order of ten years), rather than shorter or longer. Chapter 2, co-authored with Michael Woodford, reconsiders several issues connected with stabilization policy, when the zero lower bound (ZLB) is a relevant constraint on the effectiveness of conventional monetary policy, under an assumption of bounded rationality. In particular, it assumes that decision makers only plan a finite distance into the future each time they must act, and use a value function from their past experiences to estimate a continuation value for their situation at the end of the planning horizon. Forward guidance regarding future monetary policy remains relevant, even if its predicted impact is quantitatively weaker, and in particular price-level targeting continues to have advantages over purely forward-looking inflation targeting during a ZLB scenario. Moreover, recognizing that planning horizons may be relatively short for some strengthens the case for systematic price-level targeting, as opposed to temporary price-level targeting only following a ZLB scenario. Fiscal transfers can be a powerful tool to reduce the contractionary impact of an increased financial wedge during a crisis, and even make possible complete stabilization of both aggregate output and inflation under certain circumstances, but the power of such policies depends on the degree of monetary policy accommodation. We also show that a higher level of welfare is generally possible if both monetary and fiscal authorities commit themselves to history-dependent policies in the period after the financial disturbance has dissipated. Chapter 3, co-authored with Shang-Jin Wei, studies the implications of global supply chains for the design of monetary policy, using a small-open economy New Keynesian model with multiple stages of production. Within the family of simple monetary policy rules with commitment, a rule that targets separate producer price inflation at different production stages, in addition to the output gap and real exchange rate, is found to deliver a higher welfare level than alternative policy rules. As an economy becomes more open, measured by the export share, the optimal weight on the upstream inflation rises relative to that on the final stage inflation. If we have to choose among aggregate price indicators, targeting PPI inflation yields a smaller welfare loss than targeting CPI inflation alone. As the production chain becomes longer, the optimal weight on PPI inflation in the policy rule that targets both PPI and CPI inflation will also rise. A trade cost shock such as a rise in the import tariff can alter the optimal weights on different inflation variables.