All posts for the day February 5th, 2013

Chuck Norris and why Mark Carney is already easing UK monetary policy

These days we are getting a proper illustration of the Chuck Norris effect – that the central bank can ease monetary policy through sheer credibility without even printing more money. In fact in the case of Mark Carney he is now easing monetary policy in the UK even before he has become Bank of England governor. That is pretty impressive, but also good news for the UK economy. It is of course the expectation that Mark Carney as coming BoE governor will be in charge of introducing some form of NGDP level targeting.

This is from Bloomberg today:

“U.K. inflation expectations rose to the highest level in 21 months amid speculation Mark Carney will expand monetary policy and spur price rises when he takes over as Bank of England governor in July.

The so-called break-even rate increased for a fifth day before Carney testifies to U.K. lawmakers this week after telling the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, last month that policy in developed countries isn’t “maxed out.” Ten-year bonds fell after an industry report showed U.K. services expanded in January, undermining demand for fixed-income assets. The pound weakened against the euro.”

Market expectations of inflation in my view are one of the best measures of changes in the monetary policy stance. When inflation expectations are inching up it is a very clear indication that monetary conditions are getting easier. That is what is happening in the UK at the moment.

Central banks essentially have two monetary policy instruments. First of all they can print money – increase the money base. Second they can guide expectations. The latter is often much more important and that is exactly what we are seeing in the UK markets these days.

Effectively Mark Carney is already in charge of UK monetary policy – the only thing he has to do is hint what he would like to see happen with UK monetary policy going forward.

9 Comments
by Lars Christensen on February 5, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in Bank of England, Chuck Norris Effect, Mark Carney
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Posted by Lars Christensen on February 5, 2013

https://marketmonetarist.com/2013/02/05/chuck-norris-and-why-mark-carney-is-already-easing-uk-monetary-policy/

Taylor, rules and central bank independence – When Taylor is right and wrong

John Taylor is out with new paper on “The Effectiveness of Central Bank Independence Versus Policy Rules”.

Here is the abstract:

“This paper assesses the relative effectiveness of central bank independence versus policy rules for the policy instruments in bringing about good economic performance. It examines historical changes in (1) macroeconomic performance, (2) the adherence to rules-based monetary policy, and (3) the degree of central bank independence. Macroeconomic performance is defined in terms of both price stability and output stability. Factors other than monetary policy rules are examined. Both de jure and de facto central bank independence at the Fed are considered. The main finding is that changes in macroeconomic performance during the past half century were closely associated with changes the adherence to rules-based monetary policy and in the degree of de facto monetary independence at the Fed. But changes in economic performance were not associated with changes in de jure central bank independence. Formal central bank independence alone has not generated good monetary policy outcomes. A rules-based framework is essential.”

So far I have only run thought very fast, but it looks very interesting and I certainly do agree with the main conclusion that the important thing is a rule-based monetary framework rather than central bank independence. Taylor obviously prefers his own Taylor rule – Market Monetarists including myself prefer NGDP level targeting. Nonetheless getting central banks to follow a rule based monetary policy must be the key objective for monetary policy pundits. That is the view of John Taylor and Market Monetarists alike.

Here is another very interesting paper – “The Influence of the Taylor rule on US monetary policy” – certainly related to Taylor and the Taylor rule.

Here is the abstract:

“We analyze the influence of the Taylor rule on US monetary policy by estimating the policy preferences of the Fed within a DSGE framework. The policy preferences are represented by a standard loss function, extended with a term that represents the degree of reluctance to letting the interest rate deviate from the Taylor rule. The empirical support for the presence of a Taylor rule term in the policy preferences is strong and robust to alternative specifications of the loss function. Analyzing the Fed’s monetary policy in the period 2001-2006, we find no support for a decreased weight on the Taylor rule, contrary to what has been argued in the literature. The large deviations from the Taylor rule in this period are due to large, negative demand-side shocks, and represent optimal deviations for a given weight on the Taylor rule.”

John Taylor has long argued have long argued that the present crisis was a result of the Federal Reserve diverging from the Taylor rule in years just prior to 2008 and that caused a boom-bust in the UK economy. The aforementioned paper by Pelin Ilbas, Øistein Røisland and Tommy Sveen indicate that John Taylor is wrong on that view.

So concluding, John Taylor is right that we need a rule based monetary policy framework, but he is wrong about what rule we need.

HT Jens Pedersen

PS I still find Taylor’s focus on interest rates as a monetary policy instrument both frustrating and very wrong. It might have been the biggest problem with the Taylor rule – that central bankers have been led to think that “the” interest rate is the only instrument at their disposal.

 

5 Comments
by Lars Christensen on February 5, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in John Taylor, Taylor rule
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Posted by Lars Christensen on February 5, 2013

https://marketmonetarist.com/2013/02/05/taylor-rules-and-central-bank-independence-when-taylor-is-right-and-wrong/

The RBA just reminded us about the “Export Price Norm”

In my view one of the key reasons that Australia avoided recession in 2008-9 was the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) effectively is operating what I earlier have called a “Export Price Norm”. Here is what I earlier had to say about that:

One of the reasons why I think the RBA has been relatively successful is that it effectively has shadowed a policy of what Jeff Frankel calls PEP (Peg the currency to the Export Price) and what I (now) think should be called an “Export Price Norm” (EPN). EPN is basically the open economy version of NGDP level targeting.

If the primary factor in nominal demand changes in the economy is exports – as it tend to be in small open economies and in commodity exporting economies – then if the central bank pegs the price of the currency to the price of the primary exports then that effectively could stabilize aggregate demand or NGDP growth. This is in fact what I believe the RBA – probably unknowingly – has done over the last couple of decades and particularly since 2008. As a result the RBA has stabilized NGDP growth and therefore avoided monetary shocks to the economy.

Under a pure EPN regime the central bank would peg the exchange rate to the export price. This is obviously not what the RBA has done. However, by it’s communication it has signalled that it would not mind the Aussie dollar to weaken and strengthen in response to swings in commodity prices – and hence in swings in Australian export prices. Hence, if one looks at commodity prices measured by the so-called CRB index and the Australian dollar against the US dollar over the last couple of decades one would see that there basically has been a 1-1 relationship between the two as if the Aussie dollar had been pegged to the CRB index. That in my view is the key reason for the stability of NGDP growth over the past two decade. The period from 2004/5 until 2008 is an exception. In this period the Aussie dollar strengthened “too little” compared to the increase in commodity prices – effectively leading to an excessive easing of monetary conditions – and if you want to look for a reason for the Australian property market boom (bubble?) then that is it.

This morning the RBA had it regular monetary policy meeting and see here what the bank had to say:

“The inflation outlook, as assessed at present, would afford scope to ease policy further, should that be necessary to support demand…On the other hand the exchange rate remains higher than might have been expected, given the observed decline in export prices”

This is a pretty clear restatement of the “export price norm” (“the exchange rate remains higher than might have been expected, given the observed decline in export prices”). Note also the wording “support demand”. “Demand” is basically an other word for nominal GDP.

So yes, the RBA did not cut interest rates, but it has used the market and particularly the exchange rate channel to ease monetary conditions. This is pretty much in line with Bennett McCallum’s suggestion that small open-economies that operate monetary policy with interest rates close to zero should utilize the exchange rate as a policy instrument. This is what McCallum has called the MC rule.

So effectively – the RBA is indirectly targeting NGDP and seems to pretty well understand the McCallum’s MC rule as it continues to utilize the “Export Price Norm”. So Australia is hardly my biggest worry at the moment.

10 Comments
by Lars Christensen on February 5, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in Exchange rate policy, Exchange rates, Export Price Norm, McCallum, Reserve Bank of Australia
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Posted by Lars Christensen on February 5, 2013

https://marketmonetarist.com/2013/02/05/the-rba-just-reminded-us-about-the-export-price-norm/