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The Fed's Preference for Policy Rate Smoothing: Overestimation Due to Misspecification?

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  • Castelnuovo Efrem

    (University of Padua)

Abstract
The federal funds rate is featured by frequent, small changes in the same direction and infrequent reversals. How to replicate the observed smooth behavior of the federal funds rate with a small scale macroeconomic model? This paper compares the descriptive performance of an empirical fully backward looking model with that of an empirical new-Keynesian hybrid framework. It turns out that the Fed's monetary policy conduct can be very well described with a framework allowing for the presence of a small but positive fraction of forward looking agents in the IS curve. This element remarkably reduces the large interest rate smoothing weight otherwise needed to track the observed macroeconomic series.

Suggested Citation

  • Castelnuovo Efrem, 2006. "The Fed's Preference for Policy Rate Smoothing: Overestimation Due to Misspecification?," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 6(2), pages 1-22, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:bpj:bejmac:v:topics.6:y:2006:i:2:n:5
    DOI: 10.2202/1534-5998.1416
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    Cited by:

    1. Pelin Ilbas & Øistein Røisland & Tommy Sveen, 2013. "The influence of the Taylor rule on US monetary policy," Working Paper 2013/04, Norges Bank.
    2. Dalibor Roháč, 2012. "On economists and garbagemen: Reflections on Šťastný (2010)," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 25(2), pages 173-183, June.
    3. Jean-Bernard Chatelain & Kirsten Ralf, 2017. "Can We Identify the Fed's Preferences?," Working Papers halshs-01549908, HAL.
    4. Fabio Milani, 2008. "Monetary Policy With A Wider Information Set: A Bayesian Model Averaging Approach," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 55(1), pages 1-30, February.
    5. Flamini, Alessandro & Fracasso, Andrea, 2011. "Household's preferences and monetary policy inertia," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 111(1), pages 64-67, April.
    6. Liu, Ding & Zhang, Yue & Sun, Weihong, 2020. "Commitment or discretion? An empirical investigation of monetary policy preferences in China," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 409-419.
    7. Lakdawala, Aeimit, 2016. "Changes in Federal Reserve preferences," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 124-143.
    8. Gregory E. Givens, 2012. "Estimating Central Bank Preferences under Commitment and Discretion," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 44(6), pages 1033-1061, September.
    9. Aymeric Ortmans, 2020. "Evolving Monetary Policy in the Aftermath of the Great Recession," Documents de recherche 20-01, Centre d'Études des Politiques Économiques (EPEE), Université d'Evry Val d'Essonne.

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