The secular decline in the equilibrium real interest rate observed over the past decades has materially limited the room for policy-rate reductions in recessions, and has led to a marked increase in the incidence of episodes where policy rates are likely to be at, or near, the effective lower...

The secular decline in the equilibrium real interest rate observed over the past decades has materially limited the room for policy-rate reductions in recessions, and has led to a marked increase in the incidence of episodes where policy rates are likely to be at, or near, the effective lower...

We review macroeconomic performance over the period since the Global Financial Crisis and the challenges in the pursuit of the Federal Reserve's dual mandate. We characterize the use of forward guidance and balance sheet policies after the federal funds rate reached the effective lower bound. We...

A common finding in the literature is that forward guidance cannot be credible under discretionary policy as long as the zero lower bound is an one-off event. However, this is not the case when recurring episodes of zero interest rates are possible. In this paper, we contribute to this new...

This paper briefly assesses the effectiveness of the different non-standard monetary policy tools in the Euro Area. Its main focus is on the Outright Monetary Transactions (OMT) Programme which is praised by some as the ECB’s “magic wand”. Moreover, it discloses further possible unintended...

This paper briefly assesses the effectiveness of the different non-standard monetary policy tools in the Euro Area. Its main focus is on the Outright Monetary Transactions (OMT) Programme which is praised by some as the ECB’s “magic wand”. Moreover, it discloses further possible unintended...

During the Great Recession numerous central banks have implemented various unconventional monetary policy measures. This paper aims to empirically evaluate two particular types of unconventional policies (forward guidance and quantitative easing) in a structural manner. The primary aim is to...

We examine the credit channel of monetary policy from 2000 to 2015 in the Euro Area using daily monetary policy shock and credit risk measures in an autoregressive distributed lag model. We find that an expansionary monetary policy shock leads to a short-run increase in the credit risk of...

Negative interest rates remain a controversial policy for central banks. We study a novel signalling channel and ask under what conditions negative rates should exist in an optimal policymaker’s toolkit. We prove two necessary conditions for the optimality of negative rates: a time-consistent...

To determine the relative importance of both the domestic and external influences on monetary policy formulation, this paper constructs a broad monetary conditions index for Nigeria. It brings together the three key channels of monetary transmission, namely interest rate, exchange rate and...