We investigate the pass-through of monetary policy to bank lending rates in the euro area before and during the sovereign debt crisis. We make the following contributions. First, we use a factor-augmented vector autoregression, which allows us to assess the responses of a large number of...

Operating monetary policy when interest rates are already at or near zero comes with many challenges, as many countries have discovered in recent years. One aspect is that, if effective easing beyond a zero policy rate is desired, the policy rate constrained at zero will no longer conveniently...

With nominal interest rates near the zero lower bound (ZLB) in many major economies, it is theoretically untenable to apply Gaussian affine term structure models (GATSMs) while ignoring their inherent material probabilities of negative interest rates. I propose correcting that deficiency by...

I propose a simple framework that quantities the stance of monetary policy as a "shadow short rate" when interest rates are near the zero lower bound. The framework is shown to be a close approximation to the Black (1995) framework for modelling the term structure subject to a zero-lower-bound...

We forecast economic growth in New Zealand using yield curve data within simple statistical models; i.e. typical OLS relationships that have been well-established for other countries, and related VAR specifcations. We find that the yield curve data has significant forecasting power in absolute...

The hypothesis that a forward term-premium (FTP) exists between forward 1- day rates calculated from the New Zealand bank-risk yield curve and the corresponding ex-post Official Cash Rate (OCR) is tested by applying a single equation method for a cointegrated system to daily data from March 1999...

A popular class of yield curve models is based on the Nelson and Siegel approach of 'fitting' yield curve data with simple functions of maturity. However, such models cannot be consistent across time. This article addresses that deficiency by deriving an intertemporally consistent and...

The hypothesis that New Zealand 90-day bank bill futures rates are an unbiased predictor of 90-day bank bill rates is tested by applying the single-equation method of Stock and Watson (1993) to quarterly data from 1989 to 1997. The results do not reject the unbiasedness hypothesis for the one...