Paolo Surico
- 3 July 2024
- FORUM ON CENTRAL BANKING - PAPERS AND PRESENTATIONS
- 22 July 2013
- WORKING PAPER SERIES - No. 1568Details
- Abstract
- To what extent does the availability of credit depend on monetary policy? And, does this relationship vary with bank characteristics? Based on a common source of balance sheet data for the four largest economies of the euro area over the period 1999-2011, we uncover three main regularities. First, the effect of monetary policy on bank lending is significant and heterogeneous in Germany and Italy, which are characterised by a large number of banks; but it is very weak in Spain and more homogeneous in France, where the banking industry has a higher degree of market concentration. Second, there is some evidence that monetary policy exerts larger effects on cooperative and savings banks with lower liquidity and less capital in Germany and savings banks with smaller size in Italy. Third, heterogeneity across groups of banks belonging to the same category in any particular country is found to be less pronounced.
- JEL Code
- C33 : Mathematical and Quantitative Methods→Multiple or Simultaneous Equation Models, Multiple Variables→Panel Data Models, Spatio-temporal Models
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
G21 : Financial Economics→Financial Institutions and Services→Banks, Depository Institutions, Micro Finance Institutions, Mortgages
- 23 February 2008
- WORKING PAPER SERIES - No. 866Details
- Abstract
- Most analyses of the U.S. Great Moderation have been based on structural VAR methods, and have consistently pointed towards good luck as the main explanation for the greater macroeconomic stability of recent years. Based on an estimated New-Keynesian model in which the only source of change is the move from passive to active monetary policy, we show that VARs may misinterpret good policy for good luck. First, the policy shift is suficient to generate decreases in the theoretical innovation variances for all series, and decreases in the variances of inflation and the output gap, without any need of sunspot shocks. With sunspots, the estimated model exhibits decreases in both variances and innovation variances for all series. Second, policy counterfactuals based on the theoretical structural VAR representations of the model under the two regimes fail to capture the truth, whereas impulse-response functions to a monetary policy shock exhibit little change across regimes. Since these results are in line with those found in the structural VARbased literature on the Great Moderation, our analysis suggests that existing VAR evidence is compatible with the 'good policy' explanation of the Great Moderation.
- JEL Code
- E3 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles
E52 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit→Monetary Policy
- 25 October 2007
- WORKING PAPER SERIES - No. 824Details
- Abstract
- Using a structural VAR with time-varying parameters and stochastic volatility on post-WWII U.S. data, we document a striking negative correlation between the evolution of the long-run coefficient on inflation in the monetary rule and the evolution of the persistence and predictability of inflation relative to a trend component. Using a standard sticky-price model, we show that a more aggressive policy stance towards inflation causes a decline in inflation predictability, providing a possible interpretation for the findings of the structural VAR.
- JEL Code
- E37 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles→Forecasting and Simulation: Models and Applications
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
- 20 April 2006
- WORKING PAPER SERIES - No. 605Details
- Abstract
- This paper documents a new stylized fact of the greater macroeconomic stability of the U.S. economy over the last two decades. Using 131 monthly time series, three popular statistical methods and the forecasts of the Federal Reserve's Greenbook and the Survey of Professional Forecasters, we show that the ability to predict several measures of inflation and real activity declined remarkably, relative to naive forecasts, since the mid-1980s. This break down in forecast ability appears to be an inherent feature of the most recent period and thus represents a new challenge for competing explanations of the 'Great Moderation'.
- JEL Code
- E37 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles→Forecasting and Simulation: Models and Applications
E47 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Money and Interest Rates→Forecasting and Simulation: Models and Applications
C22 : Mathematical and Quantitative Methods→Single Equation Models, Single Variables→Time-Series Models, Dynamic Quantile Regressions, Dynamic Treatment Effect Models &bull Diffusion Processes
C53 : Mathematical and Quantitative Methods→Econometric Modeling→Forecasting and Prediction Methods, Simulation Methods
- 19 November 2003
- WORKING PAPER SERIES - No. 291Details
- Abstract
- This paper offers an alternative explanation for the behaviour of post-war US inflation by measuring a novel source of monetary policy time-inconsistency due to Cukierman (2002). In the presence of asymmetric preferences, the monetary authorities end up generating a systematic inflation bias through the private sector expectations of a larger policy response in recessions than in booms. Reduced-form estimates of US monetary policy rules indicate that while the inflation target declines from the pre-to the post-Volcker regime, the average inflation bias, which is about one per cent before 1979, tends to disappear over the last two decades. This result can be rationalized in terms of the preference on output stabilisation, which is found to be large and asymmetric in the former but not in the latter period.
- JEL Code
- 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
- 1 May 2003
- WORKING PAPER SERIES - No. 229Details
- Abstract
- The announced primary objective of the European Central Bank is price stability. While no restrictive reference is given to how the goal should be reached, such a mandate can be thought as a concern to stabilize some relevant macroeconomic aggregates. Accordingly, we frame ECB monetary policy in a general set up that allows policy makers to weight differently positive and negative deviations of inflation and output gaps. The empirical analysis on aggregated Euro area data indicates that ECB monetary policy can be characterized by a nonlinear policy rule. While the objective of price stability is symmetric, the one on real activity is not in that output contractions require larger policy responses. Moreover, the actual Euro interest rate highly commoves with the counterfactual rate that the Bundesbank would have followed if charged to set policy rates for the Euro area.
- JEL Code
- 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