To what extent did the Bank of Japan's liquidity facilities for corporate financing reduce commercial paper (CP) issue-rates in Japan? To answer this question, we propose a simple structural model that illustrates the market for the CP operations and their effects on the CP primary market. Based...

Recent studies show that the Taylor rule possesses desirable properties in terms of generating determinacy and E-stability of rational expectations equilibria under sticky prices. This paper examines whether this policy rule retains these properties within a discrete-time...

Using a model of island economy where financial markets aggregate dispersed information of the public, we analyze how two-way communication between the central bank and the public affects inflation dynamics. When inflation target is observable and credible to the public, markets provide the bank...

We study the term structure of interest rates and monetary policy in Japan empirically, using a macro-finance model. In particular, we investigate whether or not Japan's low long-term interest rates can be explained with economic rationality by taking into account some key features of the...

To what extent did the Bank of Japan's liquidity provisions reduce the premium on money market rates over the year-ends in Japan? To answer this question, we propose a simple structural model that illustrates the year-end operations and the year-end interbank money markets. Based on the...

Equilibrium nominal interest rates are useful indicators for both monetary policy authorities and market players. However, there are few studies which estimate Japan's equilibrium rate because of its persistent low interest rate. We overcome this challenge by using survey forecasts of interest...

This paper surveys the empirical analyses that examine the effects of the Bank of Japan (BOJ)'s quantitative easing policy (QEP), which was implemented from March 2001 through March 2006. The survey confirms a clear effect whereby the commitment to maintain the QEP fostered the expectations that...

Standard theoretical models predict that higher inflation expectations generate greater current consumer spending at the zero lower bound of interest rates. However, a recent empirical study using US micro data finds negative results for this relationship. We use micro data for Japan, which has...

This paper structurally investigates the changes in the Federal Reserve's communication strategy during the 1990s by analyzing anticipated and unanticipated disturbances to a Taylor rule. The anticipated monetary policy disturbances are identified by estimating a medium-scale dynamic stochastic...

We analyze the effectiveness of monetary policy rules in the presence of the zero lower bound on nominal interest rates, using stochastic simulations. Specifically, we assume a small structural model composed of the IS and AS curves with both forward-looking and backward-looking agents, and...