Working Paper: NBER ID: w27013
Authors: Michael D. Bauer; Eric T. Swanson
Abstract: High-frequency changes in interest rates around FOMC announcements are a standard method of measuring monetary policy shocks. However, some recent studies have documented puzzling effects of these shocks on private-sector forecasts of GDP, unemployment, or inflation that are opposite in sign to what standard macroeconomic models would predict. This evidence has been viewed as supportive of a “Fed information effect” channel of monetary policy, whereby an FOMC tightening (easing) communicates that the economy is stronger (weaker) than the public had expected. We show that these empirical results are also consistent with a “Fed response to news” channel, in which incoming, publicly available economic news causes both the Fed to change monetary policy and the private sector to revise its forecasts. We provide substantial new evidence that distinguishes between these two channels and strongly favors the latter; for example, (i) regressions that include the previously omitted public economic news, (ii) a new survey that we conduct of Blue Chip forecasters, and (iii) high-frequency financial market responses to FOMC announcements all indicate that the Fed and private sector are simply responding to the same public news, and that there is little if any role for a “Fed information effect”.
Keywords: No keywords provided
JEL Codes: E43; E52; E58
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| High-frequency changes in interest rates around FOMC announcements (E43) | fed's response to public economic news (E60) |
| fed's response to public economic news (E60) | private-sector forecasts (F17) |
| tighter monetary policy (E52) | upward revisions in GDP forecasts (H68) |
| omitted variables (C29) | coefficients on monetary policy surprises (C54) |