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Working Paper
Unconventional Monetary Policy Spillovers and the (In)convenience of Treasuries
Using high frequency data, we find that spillovers to the U.S. yield curve from the European Central Bank increased following the Global Financial Crisis, and strengthened when the U.S. normalized policy out of sync with other advanced economies. These spillovers were amplified by a contemporaneous waning in the ”convenience” of Treasuries. This provides evidence for a portfolio balance channel of transmission that is time-varying based on thenon-pecuniary characteristics of Treasuries. We rationalize these facts using a two-country model of preferred habitat investors, where time-varying ...
Journal Article
When Normalizing Monetary Policy, the Order of Operations Matters
As economic conditions in the United States continue to improve, the FOMC may consider normalizing monetary policy. Whether the FOMC reduces the balance sheet before raising the federal funds rate (or vice versa) may affect the shape of the yield curve, with consequences for financial institutions. Drawing lessons from the previous normalization in 2015–19, we conclude that normalizing the balance sheet before raising the funds rate might forestall yield curve inversion and, in turn, support economic stability.
Journal Article
The Changing Investor Composition of U.S. Treasuries, Part 1: Foreign Treasury Sales Could Raise U.S. Yields
Although their market share has been falling steadily since 2010, foreign investors retain a large share of Treasuries outstanding. As a result, increased Treasury sales from this group could have substantial implications for yields. This Bulletin, the first in a two-part series, shows that a modest increase in liquidation among foreign investors could raise U.S. Treasury yields by 25 to 100 basis points. Even in the absence of outright sales, diminished purchasing of additional Treasury issuance is likely to drive up yields.
Journal Article
The G-Spread Suggests Federal Reserve Restored Calm to Treasury Markets
In March, the coronavirus pandemic led to a sell-off in Treasury markets and a subsequent period of financial stress. I use one measure of Treasury market pressure, the G-spread, to gauge how liquidity in Treasury markets changed in response to the pandemic and the Federal Reserve’s interventions. I find that timely Federal Reserve interventions restored calm to the Treasury market, and that these interventions stand out in speed and scale compared with interventions in the early days of the 2007–08 financial crisis.
Journal Article
Labor Market Cooling Has Been Uneven Across Industries
The U.S. labor market has cooled over the last two years but remains healthy overall. However, an industry-specific version of the KC Fed’s Labor Market Conditions Indicators (LMCI) suggests pockets of tightness and weakness have appeared in a few industries. Tightness appears to be limited to less labor-intensive industries, limiting upside risk to inflation. Weakness, on the other hand, has appeared in the interest-rate-sensitive information industry, which may be vulnerable to further labor market cooling.
Journal Article
Estimating the Effects of Monetary Policy: An Ongoing Evolution
New monetary policy tools have lengthened the interval over which policy news is transmitted and processed.
Working Paper
Foreign Reserve Management and U.S. Money Market Liquidity: A Cost of Exorbitant Privilege
We show theoretically and empirically that the dollar’s status as the global reserve currencycan lead to economically significant changes in U.S. money market liquidity. We develop amodel in which U.S. money market spreads respond to foreign central banks’ exchange-ratemanagement decisions. Foreign central banks remove liquidity from U.S. money markets andcause spreads to widen by selling Treasuries to supply liquidity to their financial systems.Our analysis focuses on the major oil exporting countries with fixed exchange rates becausetheir foreign-exchange market interventions are ...
Journal Article
Why Has Monetary Policy Tightening Not Cooled the Labor Market Enough to Quell Inflation?
Despite a year of rapidly rising interest rates, labor markets remain tight, likely contributing to the persistence of inflation. We create industry-specific versions of the KC Fed’s Labor Market Conditions Indicators (LMCI) to examine labor market tightness in different sectors. We find that labor markets in the services sector—which have contributed substantially to recent labor market tightness and inflation—are less sensitive to changes in interest rates, increasing the lag for monetary policy transmission.
Journal Article
FOMC Communication Spillovers: Is There a "Call-Out" Effect?
Foreign asset prices may react to FOMC communication that references specific countries, but the effects are minimal.
Journal Article
Unconventional Monetary Policy and International Interest Rate Spillovers
After the 2008 global financial crisis, advanced economies turned to unconventional monetary policies to provide additional monetary stimulus while short-term interest rates were constrained by their effective lower bound. However, the speed of economic recovery differed markedly among these economies, leading to differences in the timing and intensity of unconventional monetary policies across central banks. These differences may have generated “spillover effects” that undermined policy tightening in the United States after 2015.Karlye Dilts Stedman assesses whether monetary policies ...