The tendency for changes in the federal funds rate to be implemented gradually has been considered evidence of an interest rate smoothing objective for the Federal Reserve. This paper investigates whether gradual funds rate movements can be explained by the dynamic structure of the economy and...

The authors find that between 1870 and 1913, large open market purchases of Treasury securities made by the U.S. Treasury Department narrowed the yield spread between Treasury bonds with high interest rate risk (the risk of an investment's value changing on account of interest rate changes) and...

The paper evaluates the ability of market participants to anticipate monetary policy decisions in the euro area and in 13 other countries. First, by looking at the magnitude and the volatility of the changes in the money market rates we show that the days of policy meetings are special days for...

The Federal Reserve (Fed) has maintained a general trend toward increased transparency and gradualism. This paper investigates the implications of these historical developments for the anticipation of monetary policy actions and adjustment of interest rates. In a theoretical framework, we...

We propose a two-step approach to estimate multi-dimensional monetary policy shocks and their causal effects requiring only daily financial market data and policy events. First, we combine a heteroscedasticity-based identification scheme with recursive zero restrictions along the term structure...

This paper develops a theoretical model of trading in the federal funds market that captures characteristics of discount window borrowing and the federal funds market during the first year of the financial crisis, including the narrowing of the spread between the discount rate and the target...

This paper investigates the impact of macroeconomic news on the dynamics of interest rates and stock returns during "low" and "high" volatility periods. These periods are determined by estimating asset dynamics using a SWARCH process. Our results suggest that securities volatility is higher...

This paper provides a systematic assessment of the effect of the Federal Reserve's asset purchase programs on Treasury yields, with particular emphasis on the role of market expectations about the evolution of the Federal Reserve's balance sheet and of interest rates on the impact of the...

Identification of Fed monetary policy shocks is complex, in light of the distinct policymaking regimes before, during, and after the ZLB period of December 2008 to December 2015. We develop a heteroscedasticity-based partial least squares approach, combined with Fama-MacBeth style cross-section...

The author provides a rigorous analysis of Milton Friedman's parable of the "helicopter" drop of money a permanent/irreversible increase in the nominal stock of fiat base money rate which respects the intertemporal budget constraint of the consolidated Central Bank and Treasury - the State....