Search Results
Showing results 1 to 10 of approximately 16.
(refine search)
Discussion Paper
What Do Financial Conditions Tell Us about Risks to GDP Growth?
The economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic has been sharp. Real U.S. GDP growth in the first quarter of 2020 (advance estimate) was -4.8 percent at an annual rate, the worst since the global financial crisis in 2008. Most forecasters predict much weaker growth in the second quarter, ranging widely from an annual rate of -15 percent to -50 percent as the economy pauses to allow for social distancing. Although growth is expected to begin its rebound in the third quarter absent a second wave of the pandemic, the speed of the recovery is highly uncertain. In this post, we estimate the risks ...
Report
Monetary policy and financial conditions: a cross-country study
Loose financial conditions forecast high output growth and low output volatility up to six quarters into the future, generating time-varying downside risk to the output gap, which we measure by GDP-at-Risk (GaR). This finding is robust across countries, conditioning variables, and time periods. We study the implications for monetary policy in a reduced-form New Keynesian model with financial intermediaries that are subject to a Value at Risk (VaR) constraint. Optimal monetary policy depends on the magnitude of downside risk to GDP, as it impacts the consumption-savings decision via the Euler ...
Working Paper
The Interplay Between Financial Conditions and Monetary Policy Shocks
We study the interplay between monetary policy and financial conditions shocks. Such shocks have a significant and similar impact on the real economy, though with different degrees of persistence. The systematic fed funds rate response to a financial shock contributes to bringing the economy back towards trend, but a zero lower bound on policy rates can prevent this from happening, with a significant cost in terms of output and investment. In a retrospective analysis of the U.S. economy over the past 20 years, we decompose the realization of economic variables into the contributions of ...
Discussion Paper
How Does U.S. Monetary Policy Affect Emerging Market Economies?
The question of how U.S. monetary policy affects foreign economies has received renewed interest in recent years. The bulk of the empirical evidence points to sizable effects, especially on emerging market economies (EMEs). A key theme in the literature is that these spillovers operate largely through financial channels—that is, the effects of a U.S. policy tightening manifest themselves abroad via declines in international risky asset prices, tighter financial conditions, and capital outflows. This so-called Global Financial Cycle has been shown to affect EMEs more forcefully than advanced ...
Report
Monetary policy, financial conditions, and financial stability
We review a growing literature that incorporates endogenous risk premiums and risk taking in the conduct of monetary policy. Accommodative policy can create an intertemporal trade-off between improving current financial conditions and increasing future financial vulnerabilities. In the United States, structural and cyclical macroprudential tools to reduce vulnerabilities at banks are being implemented, but they may not be sufficient because activities can migrate and there are limited tools for nonbank intermediaries and for borrowers. While monetary policy itself can influence ...
Speech
The U.S. economic outlook and monetary policy
Remarks at the Economic Club of New York, New York City.
Speech
The Fed’s Emergency Facilities: Usage, Impact, and Early Lessons
Remarks at Hudson Valley Pattern for Progress (delivered via videoconference).
Report
Forecasting Macroeconomic Risks
We construct risks around consensus forecasts of real GDP growth, unemployment, and inflation. We find that risks are time-varying, asymmetric, and partly predictable. Tight financial conditions forecast downside growth risk, upside unemployment risk, and increased uncertainty around the inflation forecast. Growth vulnerability arises as the conditional mean and conditional variance of GDP growth are negatively correlated: downside risks are driven by lower mean and higher variance when financial conditions tighten. Similarly, employment vulnerability arises as the conditional mean and ...
Speech
Panel remarks at the Brookings Institution
Remarks at The Fed at a crossroads: Where to go next?, Brookings Institution, Washington, D.C.
Discussion Paper
How Unconventional Are Large-Scale Asset Purchases?
The large-scale asset purchases (LSAPs) undertaken by the Fed starting in late November 2008 are widely considered to be a form of ?unconventional? monetary policy. Although these interventions are certainly unprecedented, this post shows that their effect on financial conditions is not that unconventional, in the sense that the relative effects of the LSAPs on returns across broad asset classes?nominal and real government bonds, stocks, and foreign exchange?are quite similar to those of more conventional policies, such as a reduction in the federal funds rate (FFR).