All posts tagged Bennett McCallum

In a deflationary world at the ZLB we need ‘competitive devaluations’

Sunday we got some bad news, which many wrongly will see as good news – this is from Reuters:

China and the United States on Sunday committed anew to refrain from competitive currency devaluations, and China said it would continue an orderly transition to a market-oriented exchange rate for the yuan CNY=CFXS.

…Both countries said they would “refrain from competitive devaluations and not target exchange rates for competitive purposes”, the fact sheet said.

Meanwhile, China would “continue an orderly transition to a market-determined exchange rate, enhancing two-way flexibility. China stresses that there is no basis for a sustained depreciation of the RMB (yuan). Both sides recognize the importance of clear policy communication.”

There is really nothing to celebrate here. The fact is that in a world where the largest and most important central banks in the world – including the Federal Reserve – continue to undershoot their inflation targets and where deflation remains a real threat any attempt – including using the exchange rate channel – to increase inflation expectations should be welcomed.

This of course is particularly important in a world where the ‘natural interest rate’ likely is quite close to zero and where policy rates are stuck very close to the Zero Lower Bound (ZLB). In such a world the exchange rate can be a highly useful instrument to curb deflationary pressures – as forcefully argued by for example Lars E. O. Svensson and Bennett McCallum.

In fact by agreeing not to use the exchange rate as a channel for easing monetary conditions the two most important ‘monetary superpowers’ in the world are sending a signal to the world that they are in fact not fully committed to fight deflationary pressures. That certainly is bad news – particularly because especially the Fed seems bewildered about conducting monetary policy in the present environment.

Furthermore, I am concerned that the Japanese government is in on this deal – at least indirectly – and that is why the Bank of Japan over the last couple of quarters seems to have allowed the yen to get significantly stronger, which effective has undermined BoJ chief Kuroda’s effort to hit BoJ’s 2% inflation target.

A couple of months ago we also got a very strong signal from ECB chief Mario Draghi that “competitive devaluations” should be avoided. Therefore there seems to be a broad consensus among the ‘Global Monetary Superpowers’ that currency fluctuation should be limited and that the exchange rate channel should not be used to fight devaluation pressures.

This in my view is extremely ill-advised and in this regard it should be noted that monetary easing if it leads to a weakening of the currency is not a beggar-thy-neighbour policy as it often wrongly is argued (see my arguments about this here).

Rather it could be a very effective way of increase inflationary expectations and that is exactly what we need now in a situation where central banks are struggling to figure out how to conduct monetary policy when interest rates are close the ZLB.

See some of my earlier posts on ‘currency war’/’competitive devaluations’ here:

Bernanke knows why ‘currency war’ is good news – US lawmakers don’t

‘The Myth of Currency War’

Don’t tell me the ‘currency war’ is bad for European exports – the one graph version

The New York Times joins the ‘currency war worriers’ – that is a mistake

The exchange rate fallacy: Currency war or a race to save the global economy?

Is monetary easing (devaluation) a hostile act?

Fiscal devaluation – a terrible idea that will never work

Mises was clueless about the effects of devaluation

Exchange rates and monetary policy – it’s not about competitiveness: Some Argentine lessons

The luck of the ‘Scandies’

 

2 Comments
by Lars Christensen on September 4, 2016  •  Permalink
Posted in Bank of Japan, Bennett McCallum, Currency war, ECB, Federal Reserve, Haruhiko Kuroda, Lars E. O. Svensson, Mario Draghi, PBoC, Uncategorized
Tagged , , , , , , ,

Posted by Lars Christensen on September 4, 2016

https://marketmonetarist.com/2016/09/04/in-a-deflationary-world-at-the-zlb-we-need-competitive-devaluations/

Bank of Canada at the Zero Lower Bound: The Export Price Norm to the rescue

The continued drop in the oil prices have caused the Bank of Canada to reconsider whether it should cut it key policy rate – the Overnight rate – and in a speech earlier this week BoC governor Stephen Poloz said that he would not rule out negative interest rates in Canada even though he did not expect it and he also voiced some worries about negative rates in general.

I overall think it is prudent for the BoC governor to remind the markets that the BoC is not “out of ammunition” (I hate that expression when it comes monetary policy). The reason for this is that if Poloz instead had said “we are approaching the Zero Lower Bound and below zero there is nothing more we can do to ease monetary policy” then surely we would have seen a strong market reaction – the lonnie would have strengthened, (market) inflation expectations would have dropped, Canadian stocks would have dropped and that all on its own would have been monetary tightening.

Instead he rightly reminded the markets that the BoC certainly can cut rates below zero, but there certainly is also other options. The most obvious is quantitative easing – the BoC could purchase assets – e.g Canadian Treasury bonds.

I therefore also very much welcome that the BoC a couple of days ago published a paper on how to conduct monetary policy at “low interest rates” (Poloz’s speech was based on this paper). I do not agree on everything in the paper, but I clearly think that it is right that the BoC already now makes it completely clear to the markets that it has lots of options to ease monetary policy if needed – also with interest rates close to the Zero Lower Bound (the Overnight Rate is presently at 0.5%).

Hence, this means that if oil prices continue to drop – this by way is a negative demand shock for the oil-exporting Canadian economy – the markets would not have any reason to doubt that the BoC will move to ease monetary conditions to ensure nominal stability.

Consequently if oil prices drop then rational investors should expect monetary easing and that in itself would cause the Canadian dollar to weaken, which on its own should do a lot to offset the negative demand shock from lower oil prices.

The Export Price Norm to the rescue

The question is, however, how the BoC could (and would) ease monetary conditions at the Zero Lower Bound. Obvious one possibility would be to cut rates below zero, but there are numerous reasons why the BoC would be reluctant to do this and there probably also at least a mental limit (among central bankers) for just how negative rates could become.

Another obvious option would be to do quantitative easing. However, central bankers aren’t to happy about this option either.

There is, however, an alternative to QE and negative interest rates, which I think the BoC should consider and that is the exchange rate channel.

My concrete proposal is that the BoC could combine two related ideas – Bennet McCallum’s MC rule (not to be confused with the McCallum money base rule) and my own Export Price Norm (inspired heavily by Jeff Frankel’s Peg-the-Export-Price).

In McCallum’s 2005 paper “A Monetary Policy Rule for Automatic Prevention of a Liquidity Trap?” he discusses a new policy rule that could be highly relevant for the BoC today. What McCallum suggests is basically that central banks should continue to use interest rates as the key policy instrument, but also that the central bank should announce that if interest rates needs to be lowered below zero then it will automatically switch to a Singaporean style regime, where the central bank will communicate monetary easing and tightening by announcing appreciating/depreciating paths for the country’s exchange rate. This is the MC rule.

My suggestion would be to take McCallum’s MC rule one step further and would be for the BoC to announce that it would peg the Canadian dollar to a basket of currencies and the oil price and maintain that rule as long as core inflation is below the BoC’s 2% (operational) core inflation target (which is presently not the case).

A Canadian Export Price Norm: 65% US dollar, 20% Asian currencies and 15% oil prices 

Since the BoC started targeting inflation in the early 1990s the central bank has done a very good job of hitting the inflation target and furthermore, nominal spending growth has also be quite stable. As a result we have also – as a positive side-effect had a fairly high level of real stability in the economy.

This means that if monetary policy in general has been “good” then the outcome on different financial variables that reflect this policy could be seen as good monetary policy indicators. So if we for example look at the Canadian dollar then the development in the dollar should reflect “good” monetary policy.

So if we can construct a basket of currencies and the oil prices that would “track” the historical development in the Canadian dollar then that could serve as BoC’s operational exchange rate target to be “switched” on if conditions demanded it (a negative demand shock, disinflation, ZLB etc.).

I have constructed such basket. It is 65% US dollars, 20% Asian currencies (10% Korean won and 10% Japanese yen) and 15% oil prices (this by the way more or less reflects Canada’s trading patterns). By pegging to this basket we get an implied rate for the Canadian dollar against the US dollar that would keep the basket fixed (the Export Price Norm).

CAD Export Price Norm

As the graph shows the implied USD/CAD rate (the Export Price Norm) has tracked the actual USD/CAD rate quite closely in the past 20 years and as monetary policy overall in this period has been “good” I would argue that this basket would be a useful basket to implement for Canada.

But I should also stress that I am not arguing that BoC should give up it’s present monetary policy regime – just that the BoC should announced that it can use an Export Price Norm as a policy instrument to ensure nominal stability if needed (inflation drops below then inflation target and interest rates are stuck at the Zero Lower Bound).

That said, I don’t think the Export Price Norm should be implement right now – even though it could be a good idea to pre-announce it – as core inflation seems to be pretty well-anchored and the Canadian economy is doing fairly well. Furthermore, with the overnight rate at 0.5% we are still not at the Zero Lower Bound so the first step could be to cut the overnight rate to zero (maybe already now).

And finally, if it is notable that since USD/CAD more or less has tracked the Export Price Norm during the recent massive drop in oil prices there is really no indication that the markets in general are loosing trust in BoC’s ability and willingness to ease monetary conditions to offset the demand shock from lower oil prices. This is very encouraging and Governor Poloz luckily seems to understand the need to communicate to market participants that the BoC will continue to ensure nominal stability also if interest rates hit the Zero Lower Bound.

PS Read Bob Hetzel new paper What is a Monetary Standard. More on that in the coming days.

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If you want to hear me speak about these topics or other related topics don’t hesitate to contact my speaker agency Specialist Speakers – e-mail: daniel@specialistspeakers.com or roz@specialistspeakers.com.

3 Comments
by Lars Christensen on December 11, 2015  •  Permalink
Posted in Stephen Poloz
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Posted by Lars Christensen on December 11, 2015

https://marketmonetarist.com/2015/12/11/bank-of-canada-at-the-zero-lower-bound-the-export-price-norm-to-the-rescue/

Time for the Fed to introduce a forward-looking McCallum rule

Earlier this week Boston Fed chief Eric Rosengreen in an interview on CNBC said that the Federal Reserve could introduce a forth round of quantitative easing – QE4 – since the beginning of the crisis in 2008 if the outlook for the US economy worsens.

I have quite mixed emotions about Rosengreen’s comments. I would of course welcome an increase in money base growth – what the Fed and others like to call quantitative easing – if it is necessary to ensure nominal stability in the US economy.

However, the way Rosengreen and the Fed in general is framing the use of quantitative easing in my view is highly problematic.

First of all when the fed is talking about quantitative easing it is speaking of it as something “unconventional”. However, there is nothing unconventional about using money base control to conduct monetary policy. What is unconventional is actually to use the language of interest rate targeting as the primary monetary policy “instrument”.

Second, the Fed continues to conduct monetary policy in a quasi-discretionary fashion – acting as a fire fighter putting out financial and economic fires it helped start itself.

The solution: Use the money base as an instrument to hit a 4% NGDP level target

I have praised the Fed for having moved closer to a rule based monetary policy in recent years, but the recent escalating distress in the US financial markets and particularly the marked drop in US inflation expectations show that the present monetary policy framework is far from optimal. I realize that the root of the recent distress likely is European and Chinese rather than American, but the fact that US inflation expectations also have dropped shows that the present monetary policy framework in the US is not functioning well-enough.

I, however, think that the Fed could improve the policy framework dramatically with a few adjustments to its present policy.

First of all the Fed needs to completely stop thinking about and communicating about its monetary stance in terms of setting an interest rate target. Instead the Fed should only communicate in terms of money base control.

The most straightforward way to do that is that at each FOMC meeting a monthly growth rate for the money base is announced. The announced monthly growth rate can be increased or decreased at every FOMC-meeting if needed to hit the Fed’s ultimate policy target.

Using “the” interest rate as a policy “instrument” is not necessarily a major problem when the “natural interest rate” for example is 4 or 5%, but if the natural interest rate is for example 1 or 2% and there is major slack in the economy and quasi-deflationary expectations then you again and again will run into a problem that the Fed hits the Zero Lower Bound everything even a small shock hits the economy. That creates an unnecessary degree of uncertainly about the outlook for monetary policy and a natural deflationary bias to monetary policy.

I frankly speaking have a hard time understanding why central bankers are so obsessed about communicating about monetary policy in terms of interest rate targeting rather than money base control, but I can only think it is because their favourite Keynesian models – both ‘old’ and ‘new’ – are “moneyless”.

I have earlier argued that the Fed since the summer of 2009 effectively has target 4% nominal GDP growth (level targeting). One can obviously argue that that has been too tight a monetary policy stance, but we have now seen considerable real adjustments in the US economy so even if the US economy likely could benefit from higher NGDP growth for a couple of year I would pragmatically suggest that the time has come to let bygones-be-bygones and make a 4% NGDP level target an official Fed target.

Alternatively the Fed could once every year announce its NGDP target for the coming five years based on an estimate for potential real GDP growth and the Fed’s 2% inflation target. So if the Fed thinks potential real GDP growth in the US in the coming five years is 2% then it would target 4% NGDP growth. If it thinks potential RGDP growth is 1.5% then it would target 3.5% growth.

However, it is important that the Fed targets a path level rather than the growth rate. Therefore, if the Fed undershoots the targeted level one year it would have to bring the NGDP level back to the targeted level as fast as possible.

Finally it is important to realize that the Fed should not be targeting the present level of NGDP, but rather the future level of NGDP. Therefore, when the FOMC sets the monthly growth rate of the money base it needs to know whether NGDP is ‘on track’ or not. Therefore a forecast for future NGDP is needed.

The way I – pragmatically – would suggest the FOMC handled this is that the FOMC should publish three forecasts based on three different methods for NGDP two years ahead.

The first forecast should be a forecast prepared by the Fed’s own economists.

The second forecast should be a survey of professional forecasts.

And finally the third forecast should be a ‘market forecast’. Scott Sumner has of course suggested creating a NGDP future, which the Fed could target or use as a forecasting tool. This I believe would be the proper ‘market forecast’. However, I also believe that a ‘synthetic’ NGDP future can relatively easily be created with a bit of econometric work and the input from market inflation expectations, the US stock market, a dollar index and commodity prices. In fact it is odd no Fed district has not already undertaken this task.

An idealised policy process

To sum up how could the Fed change the policy process to dramatically improve nominal stability and reduce monetary policy discretion?

It would be a two-step procedure at each FOMC meeting.

First, the FOMC would look at the three different forecasts for the NGDP level two-years ahead. These forecasts would then be compared to the targeted level of NGDP in two year.

The FOMC statement after the policy decision the three forecast should be presented and it should be made clear whether they are above or below the NGDP target level. This would greatly increase policy-making discipline. The FOMC members would be more or less forced to follow the “policy recommendation” implied by the forecasts for the NGDP level.

Second, the FOMC would decide on the monthly money base growth rate and it is clear that it follows logically that if the NGDP forecasts are below (above) the NGDP level target then the money base growth rate would have to be increased (decreased).

It think the advantages of this policy process would be enormous compared to the present quasi-discretionary and eclectic process and it would greatly move the Fed towards a truly rule-based monetary policy.

Furthermore, the process would be easily understood by the markets and by commentators alike and it would in no way be in conflict with the Fed’s official dual mandate as I strongly believe that such a set-up would both ensure price stability – defined as 2% inflation over the cycle – and “maximum employment”.

And finally back to the headline – “Time for the Fed to introduce a forward McCallum rule”. What I essentially have suggested above is that the Fed should introduce a forward-looking version of the McCallum rule. Bennett McCallum obviously originally formulated his rule in backward-looking terms (and in growth terms rather than in level terms), but I am sure that Bennett will forgive me for trying to formulate his rule in forward-looking terms.

PS if the ECB followed the exactly same rule as I have suggested above then the euro crisis would come to an end more or less immediately.

 

 

5 Comments
by Lars Christensen on October 19, 2014  •  Permalink
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged , , ,

Posted by Lars Christensen on October 19, 2014

https://marketmonetarist.com/2014/10/19/time-for-the-fed-to-introduce-a-forward-looking-mccallum-rule/

Riksbanken moves close to the ZLB – Now it is time to give Bennett McCallum a call

In a very surprising move the Swedish Riksbank this morning cut its key policy rate by 50bp to 0.25%. It was about time! The Riksbank has for a very long time undershot its 2% inflation target and inflation expectations have consistently been below 2% for a long time as well.

The interesting question now is what is next? The Riksbank is now very close to the Zero Lower Bound and with inflation still way below the inflation target one could argue that even more easing is needed.

I have earlier addressed how to conduct monetary policy at the ZLB for small-open economies like Sweden. Traditional quantitative easing obviously is an option, but it is also possible to get some inspiration from the works of such great economists as Lars E. O. Svensson or Bennett McCallum.

Already back in 2012 I wrote a post about what advice Bennett would give to the Riksbank in a situation like it now find itself in. This is from my blog post Sweden, Poland and Australia should have a look at McCallum’s MC rule

Market Monetarists – like traditional monetarists – of course long have argued that “interest rate targeting” is a terribly bad monetary instrument, but it nonetheless remains the preferred policy instrument of most central banks in the world. Scott Sumner has suggested that central banks instead should use NGDP futures in the conduct of monetary policy and I have in numerous blog posts suggested that central banks in small open economies instead of interest rates could use the currency rate as a policy instrument (not as a target!). See for example my recent post on Singapore’s monetary policy regime.

Bennett McCallum has greatly influenced my thinking on monetary policy and particularly my thinking on using the exchange rate as a policy instrument and I would certainly suggest that policy makers should take a look at especially McCallum’s research on the conduct of monetary policy when interest rates are close to the “zero lower bound”.

In McCallum’s 2005 paper “A Monetary Policy Rule for Automatic Prevention of a Liquidity Trap?” …

…What McCallum suggests is basically that central banks should continue to use interest rates as the key policy instruments, but also that the central bank should announce that if interest rates needs to be lowered below zero then it will automatically switch to a Singaporean style regime, where the central bank will communicate monetary easing and tightening by announcing appreciating/depreciating paths for the country’s exchange rate.

McCallum terms this rule the MC rule. The reason McCallum uses this term is obviously the resemblance of his rule to a Monetary Conditions Index, where monetary conditions are expressed as an index of interest rates and the exchange rate. The thinking behind McCallum’s MC rule, however, is very different from a traditional Monetary Conditions index.

McCallum basically express MC in the following way:

(1) MC=(1-Θ)R+Θ(-Δs)

Where R is the central bank’s key policy rate and Δs is the change in the nominal exchange rate over a certain period. A positive (negative) value for Δs means a depreciation (an appreciation) of the country’s currency. Θ is a weight between 0 and 1.

Hence, the monetary policy instrument is expressed as a weighted average of the key policy rate and the change in the nominal exchange.

It is easy to see that if interest rates hits zero (R=0) then monetary policy will only be expressed as changes in the exchange rate MC=Θ(-Δs).

While McCallum formulate the MC as a linear combination of interest rates and the exchange rate we could also formulate it as a digital rule where the central bank switches between using interest rates and exchange rates dependent on the level of interest rates so that when interest rates are at “normal” levels (well above zero) monetary policy will be communicated in terms if interest rates changes, but when we get near zero the central bank will announce that it will switch to communicating in changes in the nominal exchange rate.

It should be noted that the purpose of the rule is not to improve “competitiveness”, but rather to expand the money base via buying foreign currency to achieve a certain nominal target such as an inflation target or an NGDP level target…

…The point is that monetary policy is far from impotent. There might be a Zero Lower Bound, but there is no liquidity trap. In the monetary policy debate the two are mistakenly often believed to be the same thing. As McCallum expresses it:

“It would be better, I suggest, to use the term “zero lower bound situation,” rather than “liquidity trap,” since the latter seems to imply a priori that there is no available mechanism for generating monetary policy stimulus”

…So central banks are far from “out of ammunition” when they hit the zero lower bound and as McCallum demonstrates the central bank can just switch to managing the exchange rates when that happens. In the “real world” the central banks could of course announce they will be using a MC style instrument to communicate monetary policy. However, this would mean that central banks would have to change their present operational framework and the experience over the past four years have clearly demonstrated that most central banks around the world have a very hard time changing bad habits even when the consequence of this conservatism is stagnation, deflationary pressures, debt crisis and financial distress.

I would therefore suggest a less radical idea, but nonetheless an idea that essentially would be the same as the MC rule. My suggestion would be that for example the Swedish Riksbank … should continue to communicate monetary policy in terms of changes in the interest rates, but also announce that if interest rates where to drop below for example 1% then the central bank would switch to communicating monetary policy changes in terms of projected changes in the exchange rate in the exact same fashion as the Monetary Authorities are doing it in Singapore.

…Imagine for example that the US had had such a rule in place in 2008. As the initial shock hit the Federal Reserve was able to cut rates but as fed funds rates came closer to zero the investors realized that there was an operational (!) limit to the amount of monetary easing the fed could do and the dollar then started to strengthen dramatically. However, had the fed had in place a rule that would have led to an “automatic” switch to a Singapore style policy as interest rates dropped close to zero then the markets would have realized that in advance and there wouldn’t had been any market fears that the Fed would not ease monetary policy further. As a consequence the massive strengthening of the dollar we saw would very likely have been avoided and there would probably never had been a Great Recession.

The problem was not that the fed was not willing to ease monetary policy, but that it operationally was unable to do so initially. Tragically Al Broaddus president of the Richmond Federal Reserve already back in 2003 (See Bob Hetzel’s “Great Recession – Market Failure or Policy Failure?” page 301) had suggested the Federal Reserve should pre-announce what policy instrument(s) should be used in the event that interest rates hit zero. The suggestion tragically was ignored and we now know the consequence of this blunder.

The Swedish Riksbank…can.. avoid repeating the fed’s blunder by already today announcing a MC style. That would lead to an “automatic prevention of the liquidity trap”.

That is it – now back to writing on the Polish central bank’s failure to do the right thing at it’s rate decision yesterday.

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See also A scary story: The Zero Lower Bound and exchange rate dynamics

5 Comments
by Lars Christensen on July 3, 2014  •  Permalink
Posted in Bennett McCallum, Lars E. O. Svensson, Riksbanken
Tagged , , ,

Posted by Lars Christensen on July 3, 2014

https://marketmonetarist.com/2014/07/03/riksbanken-moves-close-to-the-zlb-now-it-is-time-to-give-bennett-mccallum-a-call/

Did Bennett McCallum run the SNB for the last 20 years?

Which central bank has conducted monetary policy in the best way in the last five years? Among “major” central banks the answer in my view clearly would have to be the SNB – the Swiss central bank.

Any Market Monetarist would of course tell you that you should judge a central bank’s performance on it’s ability to deliver nominal stability – for example hitting an nominal GDP level target. However, for an small very open economy like the Swiss it might make sense to look at Nominal Gross Domestic Demand (NGDD).

This is Swiss NGDD over the past 20 years.

NGDD Switzerland

Notice here how fast the NGDD gap (the difference between the actual NGDD level and the trend) closed after the 2008 shock. Already in 2010 NGDD was brought back to the 1993-trend and has since then NGDD has been kept more or less on the 1993-trend path.

Officially the SNB is not targeting NGDD, but rather “price stability” defined as keeping inflation between 0 and 2%. This has been the official policy since 2000, but at least judging from the actually development the policy might as well have been a policy to keep NGDD on a 2-3% growth path. 

Bennett McCallum style monetary policy is the key to success

So why have the SNB been so successful?

My answer is that the SNB – knowingly or unknowingly – has followed Bennett McCallum’s advice on how central banks in small open economies should conduct monetary policy. Bennett has particularly done research that is relevant to understand how the SNB has been conducting monetary policy over the past 20 years.

First, of all Bennett is a pioneer of NGDP targeting and he was recommending NGDP targeting well-before anybody ever heard of Scott Summer or Market Monetarism.  A difference between Market Monetarists and Bennett’s position is that Market Monetarists generally recommend level targeting, while Bennett (generally) has been recommending growth targeting.

Second, Bennett has always forcefully argued that monetary policy is effective in terms of determining NGDP (or NGDD) also when interest rates are at zero and he has done a lot of work on optimal monetary policy rules at the Zero Lower Bound (See for example here). One obvious policy is quantitative easing. This is what Bennett stressed in his early work on NGDP growth targeting.  Hence, the so-called Mccallum rule is defined in terms the central bank controlling the money base to hit a given NGDP growth target. However, for small open economies Bennett has also done very interesting work on the use of the exchange rate as a monetary policy tool when interest rates are close to zero.

I earlier discussed what Bennett has called a MC rule. According to the MC rule the central bank will basically use interest rates as the key monetary policy rule. However, as the policy interest rate gets close to zero the central bank will start giving guidance on the exchange rate to change monetary conditions. In his models Bennett express the policy instrument (“Monetary Conditions”) as a combination of a weighted average of the nominal exchange rate and a monetary policy interest rate.

SNB’s McCallum rule

My position is that basically we can discribe SNB’s monetary policy over the past 20 years based on these two key McCallum insights – NGDP targeting and the use of a combination of interest rates and the exchange rate as the policy instrument.

To illustrate that I have estimated a simple OLS regression model for Swiss interest rates.

It turns out that it is very to easy to model SNB’s reaction function for the last 20 years. Hence, I can explain 85% of the variation in the Swiss 3-month LIBOR rate since 1996 with only two variables – the nominal effective exchange rate (NEER) and the NGDD gap (the difference between the actual level of Nominal Gross Domestic Demand and the trend level of NGDD). Both variables are expressed in natural logarithms (ln).

The graph below shows the actually 3-month LIBOR rate and the estimated rate.

SNB policy rule

As the graph shows the fit is quite good and account well for the ups and down in Swiss interest rates since 1996 (the model also works fairly well for an even longer period). It should be noted that I have done the model for purely illustrative purposes and I have not tested for causality or the stability of the coefficients in the model. However, overall I think the fit is so good that this is a pretty good account of actual Swiss monetary policy in the last 15-20 years.

I think it is especially notable that once interest rates basically hit zero in early 2010 the SNB initially started to intervene in the currency markets to keep the Swiss franc from strengthening and later – in September 2011 – the SNB moved to put a floor under EUR/CHF at 120 so to completely curb the strengthening of Swiss franc beyond that level. As a result the nominal exchange rate effectively has been flat since September 2011 (after an initial 10% devaluation) despite massive inflows to Switzerland in connection with the euro crisis and rate of expansion in the Swiss money supply has accelerated significantly.

Concluding, Swiss monetary policy has very much been conducted in the spirit of Bennett McCallum – the SNB has effectively targeted (the level of) Nominal Gross Domestic Demand and SNB has effectively used the exchange rate instrument to ease monetary conditions with interest rates at the Zero Lower Bound.

The result is that the Swiss economy only had a very short period of crisis in 2008-9 and the economy has recovered nicely since then. Unfortunately none of the other major central banks of the world have followed the advice from Bennett McCallum and as a result we are still stuck in crisis in both Europe and the US.

PS I am well-aware that the discuss above is a as-if discussion that this is what the SNB has actually said it was doing, but rather that it might as well been officially have had a McCallum set-up.  

PPS If one really wants to do proper econometric research on Swiss monetary policy I think one should run a VAR model on the 3-month LIBOR rate, the NGDD gap and NEER and all of the variables de-trended with a HP-filter. I will leave that to somebody with econometric skills and time than myself. But I doubt it would change much with the conclusions.

3 Comments
by Lars Christensen on August 5, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in McCallum, McCallum rule, NGDP Targeting, Nominal Income Targeting, SNB
Tagged , , , ,

Posted by Lars Christensen on August 5, 2013

https://marketmonetarist.com/2013/08/05/did-bennett-mccallum-run-the-snb-for-the-last-20-years/

Bennett McCallum told “my” Kuroda story a decade ago

From to time I will make an argument and then later realize that it really wasn’t my own independently thought out argument, but rather a “reproduction” of something I once read. Often it would be Milton Friedman who has been my inspiration, however, Friedman is certainly not my only inspiration.

Another economist who undoubtedly have had quite a bit of an influence on my thinking is Bennett McCallum and guess what – it turns out that the argument that I was making in my latest post on the “Kuroda recovery” is very similar to the type of argument Bennett made in a number of papers around a decade ago about how to get Japan out of the deflationary trap. Bennett has kindly pointed this out to me. I know Bennett’s work on Japan quite well, but when I was writing my post yesterday I didn’t realize how close my thinking was to Bennett’s arguments.

I therefore think it is appropriate to touch on some of Bennett’s main conclusions and how they relate to the situation in Japan today.

I my previous post I argued that easing of monetary policy in Japan would primarily work through an increase in domestic demand – contrary to the general perception that monetary easing would primarily boost exports through a depreciation of the yen. Bennett told the exact same story a decade ago in his paper “Japanese Monetary Policy, 1991–2001” (and a number of other papers).

While I used general historical observations to make my argument Bennett in his 2003 paper uses a formal model. His model is a variation of an open economy DSGE model calibrated for the Japanese economy originally developed with Edward Nelson.

In his paper Bennett simulates a shock to inflation expectations – from -1% inflation to +1% inflation. Hence, this is not very different from the actual shock we are presently seeing in Japan. However, while the “Kuroda-shock” is a direct shock to the money base in Bennett’s example the exchange rate is used as the policy instrument.  However, this is not really important for the results in the model (as far as I can see at least…).

In Bennett’s model the Bank of Japan is buying foreign assets to weaken the yen to increase inflation expectations. According to the general perception this should lead to an marked improvement Japanese net exports. However, take a look at what conclusion Bennett reaches:

The variable on whose response we shall focus is the home country’s— i.e., Japan’s—net export balance in real terms….we see that the upward jump in the target inflation rate (π), which occurs in period 1, does indeed induce an exchange-rate depreciation rate that remains positive for over two years. Inflation, not surprisingly, rises and stays above its initial value for over two years, then oscillates and settles down at a new steady state rate of 0.005 (in relation to its starting value). Quite surprisingly, p responds more strongly than s so the real exchange rate appreciates. As expected, however, real output rises strongly for two years.

Most importantly, the real (Japanese) export balance is so affected by the two-year increase in real output that it turns negative and stays negative for almost two years.

Hence, Bennett’s simulations shows the same result as i postulated in my previous post – that monetary easing even if it leads to a substantial weakening of the yen will primarily boost domestic demand. In fact it is likely that after a few quarters the boost to domestic demand will lead to higher import growth than export growth and hence the net impact on the Japanese trade balance is likely to be negative.

Said, in another way there is no beggar-thy-neighbor-effect. In fact is anything monetary easing in Japan is likely to boost exports to Japan rather than the opposite.

I am sure that Bennett’s papers also in the future will inspire me to write blog posts on different topics as anybody who follow my blog knows it has done in the past – even when I don’t realize myself to begin with. Until then I suggest to my readers that you take a look at Bennett’s 2003 paper. It will teach you quite a bit about what is happening in Japan a decade after Bennett wrote the paper.

4 Comments
by Lars Christensen on May 11, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in Bank of Japan, Devaluation, Haruhiko Kuroda, McCallum
Tagged , , ,

Posted by Lars Christensen on May 11, 2013

https://marketmonetarist.com/2013/05/11/bennett-mccallum-told-my-kuroda-story-a-decade-ago/

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
Tagged , ,

Posted by Lars Christensen on February 5, 2013

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

Imagine the FOMC had listened to Al Broaddus in 2003

In my recent post on how the central banks of Australia, Poland and Sweden should have a look at Bennett McCallum’s MC rule I briefly mentioned how Richmond fed president Al Broaddus already back in 2003 warned that the Federal Reserve should have a plan for how to conduct monetary policy at the the “Zero Lower Bound”. It was of course Bob Hetzel’s brilliant book on the Great Recession that inspired me. In his book Bob quotes Broaddus’ comments at the June 24-25 2003 FOMC meeting.

Here is Broaddus (my bold):

With respect to our strategy and tactics going forward—trying to apply some of the lessons from history and even looking beyond them—I recognize that we may be able to address further disinflation by inducing significant additional reductions in long-term interest rates whether we explicitly target them or not. That’s what most people seem to be thinking about as the next step. But I’d like to add a new dimension to this discussion because bond rates, like short rates, are also subject to a zero bound at some point, which ultimately would put a limit on this policy channel if disinflation persisted or deflation began to threaten us. So I’d like to talk about what I’ll refer to as the “what next” issue for a couple of minutes. That issue is, How should we think about further monetary stimulus if we get to the point where both long- and short-term interest rate policies essentially have been immobilized?

Now, I agree with a lot of other people—although I’m not sure how many people around the table here—that the odds we will face this situation are small and may be exceedingly small. Because of that, it’s tempting to conclude that we have plenty of time and really don’t need to think about this or discuss it yet. In other words, we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it. But I would argue that it’s not only useful but actually urgent that we think about these kinds of options now. I’m building on the point you were making, Cathy, because confronting deflation just like confronting inflation involves a credibility problem. That’s the essence of it for me. Moreover, unlike inflation, the credibility problem in dealing with deflation is compounded by the zero bound on nominal interest rates. That raises at least the possibility that interest rate policy alone can’t deter deflation even if we’re willing to drive both short- and long-term interest rates to zero.

In the current situation—I’m not going to talk about current policy but use that as a framework in this situation—if the funds rate were to get closer to zero, the possibility of deflation has the potential to create deflation expectations and actual deflation simply because people may doubt that we can and will use monetary policy to combat deflation effectively at the zero bound. My concern is that waiting to say or think about how we would deliver further monetary stimulus if rates were to fall to zero could in some circumstances lead the public to conclude that we can’t do it.If people think we can’t deliver, that would risk creating a credibility deficit that could make it much more difficult to deal with this situation if in fact it arises and we try to use different types of policies to deal with it. So that’s why I think it’s essential that we begin to talk about this and consider it now. I’m not talking about developing a detailed strategy but at least putting something on the table.

…

Let me quickly recapitulate the key points I’ve tried to make here. The first is that, until we work through this “what next” scenario and communicate a credible strategy, addressing it to the public at some point, I think our contingency plans for confronting deflation will be incomplete. In my view, that would be a serious omission. We do a lot of contingency planning at the Fed, and I believe we should do some comprehensive contingency planning on this kind of scenario even if its probability is low. And I would say the sooner the better. We don’t have a stash of credibility as deflation fighters yet. If we delay thinking about and developing a strategy for dealing with further disinflation and it continues—and especially if it accelerates—we could wind up with a sizable credibility deficit.That could make it very difficult for us to employ successfully any strategy that we might be forced to come up with in this kind of situation. So I would just put that view on the table, too.

Today we can only imagine how the world would have looked if the FOMC had listened to Broaddus’ suggestions and put in place “contingency planning” to avoid crisis if the fed funds rate hit the zero lower bound. The FOMC unfortunately failed to do so – and so did the ECB, the Bank of England, the Bank of Japan and basically every single central bank in the world – maybe with the exception of the Monetary Authority in Singapore.

However, it is not to late for other central banks in the world to put in place contingency plans to “automatically prevent” disaster at the zero lower bound. Are you listening in Stockholm, Warsaw and Sydney? In Prague? (I have given up on Frankfurt…)

3 Comments
by Lars Christensen on December 11, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Al Broaddus, ECB, Federal Reserve, Marvin Goodfriend, MAS, McCallum, Robert Hetzel
Tagged , , , , ,

Posted by Lars Christensen on December 11, 2012

https://marketmonetarist.com/2012/12/11/imagine-the-fomc-had-listened-to-al-broaddus-in-2003/

Sweden, Poland and Australia should have a look at McCallum’s MC rule

Sweden, Poland and Australia all managed the shock from the outbreak of Great Recession quite well and all three countries recovered relatively fast from the initial shock. That meant that nominal GDP nearly was brought back to the pre-crisis trend in all three countries and as a result financial distress and debt problems were to a large extent avoided.

As I have earlier discussed on my post on Australian monetary policy there is basically three reasons for the success of monetary policy in the three countries (very broadly speaking!):

1)     Interest rates were initially high so the central banks of Sweden, Poland and Australia could cut rates without hitting the zero lower bound (Sweden, however, came very close).

2)     The demand for the countries’ currencies collapsed in response to the crisis, which effectively led to “automatic” monetary easing. In the case of Sweden the Riksbank even seemed to welcome the collapse of the krona.

3)     The central banks in the three countries chose to interpret their inflation targeting mandates in a “flexible” fashion and disregarded any short-term inflationary impact of weaker currencies.

However, recently the story for the three economies have become somewhat less rosy and there has been a visible slowdown in growth in Poland, Sweden and Australia. As a consequence all three central banks are back to cutting interest rates after increasing rates in 2009/10-11 – and paradoxically enough the slowdown in all three countries seems to have been exacerbated by the reluctance of the three central banks to re-start cutting interest rates.

This time around, however, the “rate cutting cycle” has been initiated from a lower “peak” than was the case in 2008 and as a consequence we are once heading for “new lows” on the key policy rates in all three countries. In fact in Australia we are now back to the lowest level of 2009 (3%) and in Sweden the key policy rate is down to 1.25%. So even though rates are higher than the lowest of 2009 (0.25%) in Sweden another major negative shock – for example another escalation of the euro crisis – would effectively push the Swedish key policy rate down to the “zero lower bound” – particularly if the demand for Swedish krona would increase in response to such a shock.

Market Monetarists – like traditional monetarists – of course long have argued that “interest rate targeting” is a terribly bad monetary instrument, but it nonetheless remains the preferred policy instrument of most central banks in the world. Scott Sumner has suggested that central banks instead should use NGDP futures in the conduct of monetary policy and I have in numerous blog posts suggested that central banks in small open economies instead of interest rates could use the currency rate as a policy instrument (not as a target!). See for example my recent post on Singapore’s monetary policy regime.

Bennett McCallum has greatly influenced my thinking on monetary policy and particularly my thinking on using the exchange rate as a policy instrument and I would certainly suggest that policy makers should take a look at especially McCallum’s research on the conduct of monetary policy when interest rates are close to the “zero lower bound”.

In McCallum’s 2005 paper “A Monetary Policy Rule for Automatic Prevention of a Liquidity Trap?” he discusses a new policy rule that could be highly relevant for the central banks in Sweden, Poland and Australia – and for matter a number of other central banks that risk hitting the zero lower bound in the event of a new negative demand shock (and of course for those who have ALREADY hit the zero lower bound as for example the Czech central bank).

What McCallum suggests is basically that central banks should continue to use interest rates as the key policy instruments, but also that the central bank should announce that if interest rates needs to be lowered below zero then it will automatically switch to a Singaporean style regime, where the central bank will communicate monetary easing and tightening by announcing appreciating/depreciating paths for the country’s exchange rate.

McCallum terms this rule the MC rule. The reason McCallum uses this term is obviously the resemblance of his rule to a Monetary Conditions Index, where monetary conditions are expressed as an index of interest rates and the exchange rate. The thinking behind McCallum’s MC rule, however, is very different from a traditional Monetary Conditions index.

McCallum basically express MC in the following way:

(1) MC=(1-Θ)R+Θ(-Δs)

Where R is the central bank’s key policy rate and Δs is the change in the nominal exchange rate over a certain period. A positive (negative) value for Δs means a depreciation (an appreciation) of the country’s currency. Θ is a weight between 0 and 1.

Hence, the monetary policy instrument is expressed as a weighted average of the key policy rate and the change in the nominal exchange.

It is easy to see that if interest rates hits zero (R=0) then monetary policy will only be expressed as changes in the exchange rate MC=Θ(-Δs).

While McCallum formulate the MC as a linear combination of interest rates and the exchange rate we could also formulate it as a digital rule where the central bank switches between using interest rates and exchange rates dependent on the level of interest rates so that when interest rates are at “normal” levels (well above zero) monetary policy will be communicated in terms if interest rates changes, but when we get near zero the central bank will announce that it will switch to communicating in changes in the nominal exchange rate.

It should be noted that the purpose of the rule is not to improve “competitiveness”, but rather to expand the money base via buying foreign currency to achieve a certain nominal target such as an inflation target or an NGDP level target. Therefore we could also formulate the rule for example in terms of commodity prices (that would basically be Irving Fisher’s Compensated dollar standard) or for that matter stock prices (See my earlier post on how to use stock prices as a monetary policy instrument here). That is not really important. The point is that monetary policy is far from impotent. There might be a Zero Lower Bound, but there is no liquidity trap. In the monetary policy debate the two are mistakenly often believed to be the same thing. As McCallum expresses it:

“It would be better, I suggest, to use the term “zero lower bound situation,” rather than “liquidity trap,” since the latter seems to imply a priori that there is no available mechanism for generating monetary policy stimulus”

Implementing a MC rule would be easy, but very effective

So central banks are far from “out of ammunition” when they hit the zero lower bound and as McCallum demonstrates the central bank can just switch to managing the exchange rates when that happens. In the “real world” the central banks could of course announce they will be using a MC style instrument to communicate monetary policy. However, this would mean that central banks would have to change their present operational framework and the experience over the past four years have clearly demonstrated that most central banks around the world have a very hard time changing bad habits even when the consequence of this conservatism is stagnation, deflationary pressures, debt crisis and financial distress.

I would therefore suggest a less radical idea, but nonetheless an idea that essentially would be the same as the MC rule. My suggestion would be that for example the Swedish Riksbank or the Polish central bank (NBP) should continue to communicate monetary policy in terms of changes in the interest rates, but also announce that if interest rates where to drop below for example 1% then the central bank would switch to communicating monetary policy changes in terms of projected changes in the exchange rate in the exact same fashion as the Monetary Authorities are doing it in Singapore.

You might object that in for example in Poland the key policy rate is still way above zero so why worry now? Yes, that is true, but the experience over the last four years shows that when you hit the zero lower bound and there is no pre-prepared operational framework in place then it is much harder to come up with away around the problem. Furthermore, by announcing such a rule the risk that it will have to “kick in” is in fact greatly reduced – as the exchange rate automatically would start to weaken as interest rates get closer to zero.

Imagine for example that the US had had such a rule in place in 2008. As the initial shock hit the Federal Reserve was able to cut rates but as fed funds rates came closer to zero the investors realized that there was an operational (!) limit to the amount of monetary easing the fed could do and the dollar then started to strengthen dramatically. However, had the fed had in place a rule that would have led to an “automatic” switch to a Singapore style policy as interest rates dropped close to zero then the markets would have realized that in advance and there wouldn’t had been any market fears that the Fed would not ease monetary policy further. As a consequence the massive strengthening of the dollar we saw would very likely have been avoided and there would probably never had been a Great Recession.

The problem was not that the fed was not willing to ease monetary policy, but that it operationally was unable to do so initially. Tragically Al Broaddus president of the Richmond Federal Reserve already back in 2003 (See Bob Hetzel’s “Great Recession – Market Failure or Policy Failure?” page 301) had suggested the Federal Reserve should pre-announce what policy instrument(s) should be used in the event that interest rates hit zero. The suggestion tragically was ignored and we now know the consequence of this blunder.

The Swedish Riksbank, the Polish central bank and the Australian Reserve Bank could all avoid repeating the fed’s blunder by already today announcing a MC style. That would lead to an “automatic prevention of the liquidity trap”.

PS it should be noted that this post is not meant as a discussion about what the central bank ultimately should target, but rather about what instruments to use to hit the given target. McCallum in his 2005 paper expresses his MC as a Taylor style rule, but one could obviously also think of a MC rule that is used to implement for example a price level target or even better an NGDP level rule and McCallum obviously is one of the founding father of NGDP targeting (I have earlier called McCallum the grandfather of Market Monetarism).

24 Comments
by Lars Christensen on December 10, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in CNB, Exchange rate policy, Exchange rates, McCallum, NBP, Reserve Bank of Australia, Riksbanken, Scott Sumner
Tagged , , , , , , , , , , ,

Posted by Lars Christensen on December 10, 2012

https://marketmonetarist.com/2012/12/10/sweden-poland-and-australia-should-have-a-look-at-mccallums-mc-rule/

Reykjavik here I come – so let me tell you about Singapore

As I am writing this I am getting ready to fly to Iceland. Iceland is a country that have had massive impact on my thinking and on my professional life over the last 6 years so it is always with a bit of a special feeling when I fly to Iceland.

Back in 2006 I co-authored a report on the Icelandic economy. In the report – “Geyser crisis” – we basically forecasted doom-and-gloom for the Icelandic economy. That report did not make me popular in Iceland and has taken some time to convince people in Iceland that I do not have anything against the country and the people living there. In fact I always enjoyed going to Iceland. However, whenever I go to Iceland some wild things seem to happen. A week or so after we published the Geyser crisis-report in March 2006 I went to Iceland. That was pretty wild in itself.

Then I went to Iceland again literally one week after the entire Icelandic financial system collapsed in October 2008. That was not a pleasant experience as that the Icelandic economy was on verge of collapse and the government was very close to default. The crisis had serious economic and social consequences and particularly 2009 and 2010 was very hard years for the Icelandic people. However, I am happy that the Icelandic economy has been in recovery for sometime now, the financial sector is back on its feet and the government has moved far away from default thanks to serious fiscal consolidation (a triple “fiscal cliff” to be exact).

The next time I went to Iceland was in April 2011 – one day after the Icelandic people had voted “no” in the so-called Icesave referendum. The Icelandic government and the elite in Iceland was in shock. However, I brought a positive message with me to Iceland. I was not overly worried and our macroeconomy forecast was relatively upbeat on growth. Luckily that have turned out to be more or less right in the sense that the recovery has continued (note I got a lot of things wrong in that report – most notably that we were far to negative on the outlook for unemployment).

So now I am going to Iceland again and yes I will be presenting a new forecast on the Icelandic economy tomorrow (Wednesday) in Reykjavik. However, this time around the feeling is not as tense as in March 2006, October 2008 or in April 2011. In fact “normality” seems to have returned to the Icelandic economy and even though I will not reveal anything about our new macroeconomic forecast for Iceland I will promise that it will not be a new “Geyser crisis” report.

Monetary debate takes centre stage in Iceland

In Iceland there has been a fierce public debate since 2008 about the future of the Icelandic króna and monetary and exchange rate policy. The Icelandic government has campaigned for EU membership and at a later stage euro adoption. Others have argued that Iceland should replace the Icelandic króna with the Norwegian krone or even the Canadian dollar. And most people in Iceland are skeptical about going back to a freely floating króna again and many seem to think that the free float played a major role in the Icelandic collapse in 2008 – I disagree with this view, but can easily understand the fears of a freely floating exchange rate for a country of 320,000 people. Furthermore, it is not surprising that most people in Iceland today are favouring getting rid of the króna. After all it is hard to argue hard that monetary policy has been successful in Iceland. In the 1970s and 1980s the country was struggling with very high inflation and there is no doubt that the inflation targeting regime that was put in place in 2001 did not work well and the Icelandic central bank surely has to take a lot of blame for the crisis. So the debate goes on.

I will not be weighing in on my views of the difference options being discussed in Iceland on currency and monetary reform directly. I think a number of the ideas being discussed have merits, but this is not the place and the time to discuss those ideas. Instead I want to describe the workings of the Singaporean monetary set-up. So why is that? Well, first of all there are some similarities between Singapore and Iceland – both are small (though Singapore’s population is 10 times as big as Iceland’s), very open high-income economies and both economies are highly sensitive to external shocks such as supply shocks, financial shocks and trade shocks. So maybe there are lessons to be learned from Singapore’s monetary regime that could be relevant to policy makers in Iceland. I am not necessarily arguing that Iceland should copy what they are doing in Singapore, but rather I try to broaden the debate regarding monetary policy in Iceland.

The exchange rate as policy instrument 

Here is how the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) describes the Singaporean monetary regime:

Singapore’s monetary policy has been centred on the management of the exchange rate since the early 1980s, with the primary objective of promoting medium term price stability as a sound basis for sustainable economic growth.  The choice of our monetary policy regime is predicated on the small and open nature of the Singapore economy.

There are three main features of the exchange rate system in Singapore.

1. The Singapore dollar is managed against a basket of currencies of our major trading partners.

2. MAS operates a managed float regime for the Singapore dollar with the trade-weighted exchange rate allowed to fluctuate within a policy band.

3. The exchange rate policy band is periodically reviewed to ensure that it remains consistent with the underlying fundamentals of the economy.

So the Singapore dollar is neither a freely floating currency nor is it a fixed exchange rate. Rather the Sing dollar should be seen as MAS’s key policy instrument. However, while MAS is using the exchange rate as a policy instrument it is not trying to achieve a particular level for the exchange rate as such, but rather use the exchange to ensure “medium term price stability as a sound basis for sustainable economic growth”. So in that sense MAS is a flexible inflation targeter in the same ways as for example the Swedish Riksbank or the Australian Reserve Bank. But contrary to most central banks – including the Icelandic central bank Sedlabanki – which use interest rates to hit the inflation target – MAS instead uses the exchange rate.

I see two very clear advantages to this operational set-up compared to “interest rate targeting”. First, there will never be a problem with a lower zero bound. You can weaken the currency as much as you want. Second, as the exchange rate is freely floating within the “policy band” so the market will gradually be telling MAS was direction to move policy to ensure that it hits it’s inflation target (or any other nominal target). In reality one can think of this as parallel to Scott Sumner’s idea of using futures to hit an NGDP target.

Some have suggested that MAS is using this Basket, Band, Crawl (BBC) set-up to reduce volatility in the real effective exchange rate and to ensure that the real effective exchange rate is aligned with economic fundamentals. An early proponent of this view was John Williamson. An alternative interpretation instead stresses the nominal exchange rate and sees the nominal exchange rate as a tool to achieve nominal targets. This view has been most forcefully made by Bennett McCallum – See for example here.

This discussion is really similar to the impact of devaluations and revaluations. While most economists and commentators seem to think about devaluations as having an impact on the real exchange rate (competitiveness) I – and other monetarists – would instead stress the impact of changes in nominal variables – the exchanges rate, the money base/supply, prices and nominal GDP. See for example my earlier post here.

Empirical research have tended to support the McCallum view of the Singaporean monetary regime – see for example this paper. Hence, MAS conduct changes to the currency basket and band to ensure it’s nominal target (“price stability”), but MAS is not targeting the real exchange rate. In that sense MAS is “monetarist” in its thinking about the exchange rate regime.

Furthermore, it should be stressed that even though the Singaporean system probably has reduced currency fluctuation compared with a purely free floating Singapore dollar that is not the stated purpose of the policy. The exchange rate is a policy instrument and not the ultimate target of monetary policy.

A lack of transparency a key flaw

While I certainly think that Singaporean monetary regime has some clear advantages compared with “interest rate targeting” – particularly that there is no zero bound problem – I would also highlight some problems. First, one can certainly discuss whether the best ultimate target for the central bank is an inflation target. Obviously MAS’ is not a totally traditional inflation targeter in the sense that it targets “price stability” in a more broad sense. However, the important thing here is not the ultimate policy target, but the operational framework of using the exchange rate rather than interest rates to achieve the central bank’s ultimate nominal target (inflation, the price level or NGDP).

My second objection is more fundamental. I consider it to be a major problem with the way MAS conducts monetary policy that it is not very clear on “the numbers”. Hence, MAS is not clear about what “price stability” is. Is it zero inflation? Is it an inflation target and what kind of inflation measure are we talking about. Furthermore, while MAS is using a “basket of currencies” as the policy instrument it is not entirely clear what currencies are in the basket and what weights the different currencies have. Finally, MAS is not clear when it describes the “fluctuation band”. Is it 5% or 15%? We really don’t know. So if other central banks were to move in the direction of a Singaporean style monetary regime then I would recommend it to be much more specific on the numbers than MAS tend to be.

Further reading on Singapore’s monetary regime

Lin Tian gives a good overview in this paper.

Stefan Gerlach the present deputy governor in the Irish central bank and former colleague of Icelandic central bank governor Mar Guðmundsson in BIS discusses the relative merits of Hong Kong’s currency board and Singapore’s monetary set-up in this paper.

PS In the US the fiscal cliff discussion seem to be the only thing people can talk about. To me it is incredible that the importance of monetary policy is ignored in this discussion. The fiscal tightening in Iceland we have seen in Iceland since 2008 is around tree times as big as the ultimate fiscal cliff would be in the US. The Icelandic economy has recovered anyway. Why? Monetary policy…Somebody should write a paper about the Icelandic policy mix after the crisis and the fairly robust recovery in the economy despite strong fiscal consolidation.

PPS I think Icelandic policy makers could be inspired by lessons from Singapore. However, other countries might certainly also benefit from studying Singapore – in particular I suggest that the Czech central bankers fly to Singapore to learn about how to conduct monetary policy in a export-oriented small open economy.

PPPS and to my favourite football team in Iceland – Áfram Stjarnan!!

Update: I have had a great day in Reykjavik – so let me share this picture from my visit to the Icelandic central bank and here is my comments on capital controls.

 

Sedlabanki

14 Comments
by Lars Christensen on December 4, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Iceland, Singapore, Uncategorized
Tagged , , ,

Posted by Lars Christensen on December 4, 2012

https://marketmonetarist.com/2012/12/04/reykjavik-here-i-come-so-let-me-tell-you-about-singapore/

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