With the Federal Funds rate approaching the zero lower bound, the U.S. Federal Reserve adopted a range of unconventional monetary policy measures known as quantitative Easing (QE). Quantifying the impact QE has on the real economy, however, is not straightforward as standard tools such as VAR...

The withdrawal of foreign capital from emerging countries at the height of the recent financial crisis and its quick return sparked a debate about the impact of capital flow surges on asset markets. This paper addresses the response of property prices to an inflow of foreign capital. For that...

In this paper we reconsider the degree of international comovement of inflation rates. We use a dynamic hierarchical factor model that is able to decompose Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation in a panel of countries into (i) a factor common to all inflation series and all countries, (ii) a...

We introduce heterogeneity into a monetary policy committee by allowing the degree of model uncertainty to differ across members. It is shown that in this framework the stage at which members reach consensus matters. An aggregation protocol under which members only average policy deemed optimal...

We examine the effects of U.S. federal funds target rate changes and all types of FOMC communication on European and Pacific equity market returns using a GARCH model. We show that both types of news have a significant impact, but that the effects are not symmetric: although several...

This paper shows that monetary policy should be delegated to a central bank that cross-checks optimal policy with information from the Taylor rule. Attaching some weight to deviations of the interest rate from the interest rate prescribed by the Taylor rule is beneficial if the central bank aims...

In this paper, we study how central bank transparency influences the formation of money market expectations in emerging markets. The sample covers 25 countries for the period from January 1998 to December 2009. We find, first, that transparency reduces the bias (the difference between the money...

In this paper, we study the role played by central bank communication in monetary policy transmission. We employ the Swiss Economic Institute’s Monetary Policy Communicator to measure the future stance of the European Central Bank’s monetary policy. Our results indicate, first, that...

We study the correlation between pairs of bond and stock markets in Canada and the United States between January 1998 and December 2009 in the framework of diagonal-BEKK models. Our research question is whether monetary policy actions and communications by the Bank of Canada and the Federal...

This paper investigates how FOMC members revise their forecasts for key macroeconomic variables. Based on a new data set of forecasts from individual FOMC members between 1992 and 2000 it is shown that FOMC members intentionally overrevise their forecasts at the first revision and underrevise at...