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e Forward Guidance Forward Guidance Forward guidance is the practice of communicating the future path of monetary Perspectives from Central Bankers, Scholars policy instruments. Such guidance, it is argued, will help sustain the gradual recovery that now seems to be taking place while central banks unwind their massive and Market Participants balance sheets. This eBook brings together a collection of contributions from central Perspectives from Central Bankers, Scholars and Market Participants bank officials, researchers at universities and central banks, and financial market practitioners. The contributions aim to discuss what economic theory says about Edited by Wouter den Haan forward guidance and to clarify what central banks hope to achieve with it. With contributions from: Peter Praet, Spencer Dale and James Talbot, John C. Williams, Sayuri Shirai, David Miles, Tilman Bletzinger and Volker Wieland, Jeffrey R Campbell, Marco Del Negro, Marc Giannoni and Christina Patterson, Francesco Bianchi and Leonardo Melosi, Richard Barwell and Jagjit S. Chadha, Hans Gersbach and Volker Hahn, David Cobham, Charles Goodhart, Paul Sheard, Kazuo Ueda. CEPR 77 Bastwick Street, London EC1V 3PZ Tel: +44 (0)20 7183 8801 A VoxEU.org eBook Email: [email protected] www.cepr.org Forward Guidance Perspectives from Central Bankers, Scholars and Market Participants A VoxEU.org eBook Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) Centre for Economic Policy Research 3rd Floor 77 Bastwick Street London, EC1V 3PZ UK Tel: +44 (0)20 7183 8801 Email: [email protected] Web: www.cepr.org © 2013 Centre for Economic Policy Research Forward Guidance Perspectives from Central Bankers, Scholars and Market Participants A VoxEU.org eBook Edited by Wouter den Haan a Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) The Centre for Economic Policy Research is a network of over 800 Research Fellows and Affiliates, based primarily in European Universities. The Centre coordinates the re- search activities of its Fellows and Affiliates and communicates the results to the public and private sectors. CEPR is an entrepreneur, developing research initiatives with the producers, consumers and sponsors of research. Established in 1983, CEPR is a Euro- pean economics research organization with uniquely wide-ranging scope and activities. The Centre is pluralist and non-partisan, bringing economic research to bear on the analysis of medium- and long-run policy questions. CEPR research may include views on policy, but the Executive Committee of the Centre does not give prior review to its publications, and the Centre takes no institutional policy positions. The opinions ex- pressed in this report are those of the authors and not those of the Centre for Economic Policy Research. CEPR is a registered charity (No. 287287) and a company limited by guarantee and registered in England (No. 1727026). Chair of the Board Guillermo de la Dehesa President Richard Portes Chief Executive Officer Stephen Yeo Research Director Lucrezia Reichlin Policy Director Richard Baldwin Contents Foreword vii Introduction 1 Wouter den Haan Part I: Central Bankers on Forward Guidance: Description and Motivation Forward Guidance and the ECB 25 Peter Praet Forward Guidance in the UK 35 Spencer Dale and James Talbot Forward Policy Guidance at the Federal Reserve 43 John C Williams The Bank of Japan’s Current Monetary Easing and Forward Guidance 49 Sayuri Shirai Monetary policy and forward guidance in the UK 57 David Miles Part II: Empirics and Economic Theory on Forward Guidance Low for How Long? Estimating the ECB’s “Extended Period of Time” 79 Tilman Bletzinger and Volker Wieland Odyssean Forward Guidance in Monetary Policy: A Primer 87 Jeffrey R Campbell The Macroeconomic Effects of Forward Guidance 107 Marco Del Negro, Marc Giannoni and Christina Patterson The Value of Forward-Looking Communication 115 Francesco Bianchi and Leonardo Melosi Part III: Improving the Implementation of Forward Guidance Complete Forward Guidance 125 Richard Barwell and Jagjit S. Chadha Effective Forward Guidance: Scrupulous Central Bankers and Forecast Contracts 133 Hans Gersbach and Volker Hahn Part IV: Criticism Forward Guidance in the UK: Holding Rates Down till Something Happens 143 David Cobham Debating the Merits of Forward Guidance 151 Charles Goodhart Forward Guidance: A Central Bank Watcher’s Perspective 157 Paul Sheard A Long and Bumpy Journey ahead for Forward Guidance 165 Kazuo Ueda vi Foreword Since the onset of the Global Crisis in 2008, CEPR’s policy portal VoxEU.org has produced a string of eBooks on issues related to the crisis written by world-leading economists, practitioners and specialists. The books are produced rapidly and designed to provide expert and timely advice and guidance for policymakers on potential solutions. This new eBook on forward guidance is very much in this spirit. Forward guidance is the practice of communicating the future path of monetary policy instruments. Such guidance, it is argued, will help sustain the gradual recovery that now seems to be taking place while central banks unwind their massive balance sheets. This eBook brings together a collection of contributions from central bank officials, researchers at universities and central banks, and financial market practitioners. The contributions aim to discuss what economic theory says about forward guidance and to clarify what central banks hope to achieve with it. Wouter den Haan concludes his editorial introduction by observing that “The best time for forward guidance may lie in the future … providing information on the path towards normalised monetary policy could become very useful and central banks will have to consider seriously if, and if so how, they would do this.” Given this, it seems likely that the analysis in this eBook will remain relevant for years to come. We are very grateful to Wouter for the energy and expertise he has shown in organising and editing the inputs to this eBook; we are also grateful to the authors of the chapters for their rapid responses to the invitation to contribute. As ever, we also gratefully acknowledge the vital contributions of Anil Shamdasani and Charlie Anderson, CEPR’s Publications Officer, for their characteristic speed and professionalism in producing the book. Stephen Yeo Chief Executive Officer, CEPR 21 October 2013 vii Introduction Wouter den Haan Centre for Macroeconomics, LSE and CEPR Forward guidance is the provision of information by central banks about the future conduct of monetary policy and in particular about the central bank's policy interest rate. Forward guidance is aimed at influencing the public's expectations. This goal is not new; it has long been understood that managing expectations is an important part of monetary policy. In fact, following the high inflationary 1970s, institutions were put in place to credibly anchor expected inflation rates to a low target level.1 The economic logic for this sort of expectations management is simple. Prices and wages set today depend crucially on people’s expectations of the future paths of prices and wages. For example, current inflation will be lower when expected future inflation is lower. Forward guidance shares the basic economic logic that links today’s decisions to future expectations, but it differs in its subject. Forward guidance focuses on the instruments of monetary policy rather than the targets of monetary policy. But this aspect of monetary policy is also not new. Before the Global Crisis, monetary policy committees provided information about their policy interest rate in future periods as well as setting the current rate. Some did so explicitly – providing a numerical forecast of the forward path of the policy interest rate. Other monetary policy setters did it implicitly – providing more or less explicit messages in official statements and speeches. What is new is the scope and motivation for using forward guidance as a monetary policy tool. This has changed substantially during the recent economic downturn for several central banks. The aims of this eBook are to: 1 See Sheard (2013, this eBook). 1 Forward Guidance: Perspectives from Central Bankers, Scholars and Market Participants • highlight how the implementation of forward guidance has evolved over time; • clarify what central banks hope to achieve with forward guidance; • discuss what economic theory says about forward guidance; and • raise possible objections to forward guidance or to the way it is currently implemented. To accomplish these goals, the eBook brings together a collection of contributions written by a diverse group of authors. They include: • central bank officials from the Bank of England, the Bank of Japan, the ECB, and the US Federal Reserve; • researchers at universities and central banks; and • financial market practitioners. Different types of forward guidance: Delphic and Odyssian With forward guidance, central banks provide information about future monetary policy. This can be done by announcing numerical guidelines for the forward path of the policy interest rate, or through less quantitative verbal statements. An example of the latter would be the announcement that a monetary policy committee has a bias towards an increase at the next meeting. The phrasing in such statements is not always unambiguous, as demonstrated by the following statement of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) reported in Rudebush and Williams (2006): "Policy accommodation can be removed at a pace that is likely to be measured". The Reserve Bank of New Zealand began announcing a forward path for the policy interest rate as part of its usual routine in 1997, followed by the Norges Bank in 2005, the Riksbank in 2007, and the Czech National Bank in 2008. Campbell et al. (2012) 2 Introduction refer to such announcements as Delphic forward guidance, because it provides a forecast, but no commitment of any kind. The Bank of Japan was a pioneer in using forward guidance as an accommodative monetary policy. In 1999, the Bank of Japan found itself in a situation in which the policy interest rate could not be reduced any further to stimulate the economy and to reverse deflationary pressure.