E58 - Central Banks and Their Policies

• More Than Words: Fed Chairs’ Communication During Congressional Testimonies

  Staff Working Paper 2022-20 Michelle Alexopoulos, Xinfen Han, Oleksiy Kryvtsov, Xu Zhang

  We measure soft information contained in the congressional testimonies of U.S. Federal Reserve Chairs and analyze its effect on financial markets. Increases in the Chair’s text-, voice-, or face-emotion indices during these testimonies generally raise stock prices and lower their volatility.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Central bank research, Financial markets, Monetary policy communications JEL Code(s): E, E5, E52, E58, E7, E71

• Household Heterogeneity and the Performance of Monetary Policy Frameworks

  Staff Working Paper 2022-12 Edouard Djeutem, Mario He, Abeer Reza, Yang Zhang

  Consumption inequality and a low interest rate environment are two important trends in today’s economy. But the implications they may have—and how those implications interact—within different monetary policy frameworks are not well understood. We study the ranking of alternative frameworks that take these trends into account.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Economic models, Monetary policy and uncertainty, Monetary policy framework, Monetary policy transmission JEL Code(s): D, D3, D31, D5, D52, E, E2, E21, E3, E31, E5, E52, E58

• The Central Bank Strikes Back! Credibility of Monetary Policy under Fiscal Influence

  Staff Working Paper 2022-11 Antoine Camous, Dmitry Matveev

  Central banks in many advanced economies enjoy a high degree of independence, which protects monetary policy decisions from political influence. But how should independent central banks react if pressured by fiscal policy-makers? We examine whether a central bank should design a monetary policy framework that prescribes acting conditionally on how fiscal policy behaves.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Credibility, Fiscal policy, Monetary policy JEL Code(s): E, E0, E02, E5, E52, E58, E6, E61, E62

• A Horse Race of Alternative Monetary Policy Regimes Under Bounded Rationality

  Staff Discussion Paper 2022-4 Joel Wagner, Tudor Schlanger, Yang Zhang

  We introduce bounded rationality in a canonical New Keynesian model calibrated to match Canadian macroeconomic data since Canada’s adoption of inflation targeting. We use the model to quantitatively assess the macroeconomic impact of alternative monetary policy regimes.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff discussion papers Topic(s): Central bank research, Economic models, Monetary policy framework, Monetary policy transmission JEL Code(s): E, E2, E27, E3, E4, E5, E52, E58

• Payment Coordination and Liquidity Efficiency in the New Canadian Wholesale Payments System

  Staff Discussion Paper 2022-3 Francisco Rivadeneyra, Nellie Zhang

  We study the impact of the Bank of Canada’s choice of settlement mechanism in Lynx on participant behaviors, liquidity usage, payment delays and the overall operational efficiency of the new system.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff discussion papers Topic(s): Payment clearing and settlement systems JEL Code(s): C, C5, E, E4, E42, E5, E58

• On the Wedge Between the PPI and CPI Inflation Indicators

  Staff Working Paper 2022-5 Shang-Jin Wei, Yinxi Xie

  We find that the CPI and PPI inflation indexes co-moved strongly throughout the late 20th century, but their correlation has fallen substantially since the early 2000s. We offer a structural explanation for this divergence based on the growth of global supply chains since 2000. This finding offers a unique perspective for the future design of optimal monetary policy.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Inflation and prices, Inflation targets, International topics, Monetary policy JEL Code(s): E, E3, E31, E5, E52, E58, F, F1, F11, F12, F4, F41, F6, F62