We test for evidence of asymmetric behaviour in the monetary policy reaction functions of the central banks of Australia and New Zealand. For the Reserve Bank of New Zealand, we found little evidence of asymmetric behaviour, whereas the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) appears to react more...

This paper tests the standard quadratic approximation to central bank preferences on data from Australia and New Zealand, two of the earliest explicit inflation targeting countries. The standard linear-quadratic monetary policy model assumes central bank preferences over key macroeconomic...