Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/197876 
Year of Publication: 
2018
Series/Report no.: 
Bank of Canada Staff Working Paper No. 2018-23
Publisher: 
Bank of Canada, Ottawa
Abstract: 
We introduce limited information in monetary policy. Agents receive signals from the central bank revealing new information ("news") about the future evolution of the policy rate before changes in the rate actually take place. However, the signal is disturbed by noise. We employ a non-standard vector autoregression procedure to disentangle the economic and financial effects of news and noise in US monetary policy since the mid- 1990s. Using survey- and market-based data on federal funds rate expectations, we find that the noisy signal plays a relatively important role for macroeconomic dynamics. A signal reporting news about a future policy tightening shifts policy rate expectations upwards and decreases output and prices. A sizable part of the signal is noise surrounding future monetary policy actions. The noise decreases output and prices and can explain up to 16% and 13% of their variations, respectively. Furthermore, it significantly increases the excess bond premium, the corporate spread and financial market volatility, and decreases stock prices.
Subjects: 
Transmission of monetary policy
Monetary policy implementation
Econometric and statistical methods
Business fluctuations and cycles
Financial markets
JEL: 
C18
C32
E02
E43
E52
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Document Type: 
Working Paper

Files in This Item:
File
Size





Items in EconStor are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.