Challenges for Monetary Policy and the Enlarged Euroland

The recent outset of European Monetary Integration with the introduction of a unique currency and a full centralization of monetary policy together with the increasing integration of global capital markets, stimulated a large body of research on monetary policy rules. Since Lucas’ critique, the need to find rules which are at the same time simple and accountable has been a first goal for researchers and policy makers. In fact, policy can be effective only if it is credible. Credibility is enhanced thorough the adoption of simple, accountable monetary policy rules. However, the big question is: what kind of rules ? This paper tries to address the critical aspects in monetary policy modelling with a special emphasis to Euro-Enlargement.Monetary Policy Modelling

Equilibrium selection in a cashless economy with transaction frictions in the bond market

The present paper introduces two bonds in a standard New-Keynesian model to study the role of segmentation in bond markets for the determinacy of rational expectations equilibria. We use a strongly-separable utility function to model 'liquid' bonds that provide transaction services for the purchase of consumption goods. 'Illiquid' bonds, instead, provide the standard services of store of value. We interpret liquid bonds as mimicking short-term instruments, and illiquid bonds to represent long-dated instruments. In this simple setting, the expectation hypothesis holds after log-linearizing the model and after pricing the bonds according to an affine scheme. We assume that monetary policy follows a standard Taylor rule. In this context, the inflation targeting parameter should be higher than one for determinacy of rational expectations equilibria to be achieved. We compute an analytical solution for the bond pricing kernel. We also show that the possibility of obtaining this analytical solution depends on the type of utility function. When utility is weakly separable between consumption and liquid bonds, the Taylor principle holds conditional to the output and inflation coefficients in the Taylor rule. Achieving solution determinacy requires constraining these coefficients within bounds that depend on the structural parameters of the model, like the intertemporal elasticity of consumption substitution.term structure; determinacy; pricing kernel; fiscal and monetary policy

Trading Directions and the Pricing of Euro Interbank Deposits in the Long Run

We investigate the relation between aggregate trading imbalances and interest rates in the Euro money market. We use data for OTC contracts as well as information from the major electronic trading platform in Europe to study the presence of cointegration between trading pressures and money market rates. We report strong evidence of a long-term linear relation between trading imbalances and liquidity prices for Euro interbank deposits.Euro money market, order flow, interest rates

Conditional Leptokurtosis in Energy Prices: Multivariate Evidence from Futures Markets

We study the joint movements of the returns on futures for crude oil, heating oil and natural gas at a daily frequency. We model the leptokurtic behavior through the multivariate GARCH with dynamic conditional correlations and elliptical distributions introduced by Pelagatti and Rondena (2004). Futures prices of crude and heating oil co-vary strongly. The correlation between the futures prices of natural gas and crude oil has been rising over the last 5 years. However, this correlation has been low on average over two thirds of the sample, indicating that futures markets have no established tradition of pricing natural gas as a function of developments on oil markets.Multivariate GARCH; Kurtosis; Energy Prices; Futures Markets

Determinacy of Interest Rate Rules with Bond Transaction Services in a Cashless Economy

Canzoneri and Diba (2004) show that the Taylor principle is not a panacea for equilibrium determinacy in a model where bonds and money provide liquidity services to households. We consider a cashless variant of their model with two types of government bonds. One bond provides transaction services, whereas the other is used only as a store of value. We show that the Taylor principle is still sacrosant. In general, the results of Leeper (1991) are confirmed.Monetary Policy; Fiscal Policy; Government Bonds; Determinacy

Gold and the U.S. Dollar: Tales from the turmoil

We investigate how the relation between gold prices and the U.S. Dollar has been affected by the recent turmoil in financial markets. We use spot prices of gold and spot bilateral exchange rates against the Euro and the British Pound to study the pattern of volatility spillovers. We estimate the bivariate structural GARCH models proposed by Spargoli e Zagaglia (2008) to gauge the causal relations between volatility changes in the two assets. We also apply the tests for change of co-dependence of Cappiello, Gerard and Manganelli (2005). We document the ability of gold to generate stable comovements with the Dollar exchange rate that have survived the recent phases of market disruption. Our findings also show that exogenous increases in market uncertainty have tended to produce reactions of gold prices that are more stable than those of the U.S. Dollar.gold; exchange rates; GARCH; quantile regressions

The Comovements Along the Term Structure of Oil Forwards in Periods of High and Low Volatility: How Tight Are They?

We study the pattern of contagion in volatility along the term structure of oil forwards. We use measures of codependence of returns from quantile regressions to discriminate between integration of the markets for different maturities in the cases of low and high volatility of the returns. Our results provide evidence of decoupling: for most of the maturities we consider, the probability of contagion falls during periods of high volatility.conditional quantiles; oil prices

Volatility forecasting for crude oil futures

This paper studies the forecasting properties of linear GARCH models for closing-day futures prices on crude oil, first position, traded in the New York Mercantile Exchange from January 1995 to November 2005. In order to account for fat tails in the empirical distribution of the series, we compare models based on the normal, Student’s t and Generalized Exponential distribution. We focus on out-of-sample predictability by ranking the models according to a large array of statistical loss functions. The results from the tests for predictive ability show that the GARCH-G model fares best for short horizons from one to three days ahead. For horizons from one week ahead, no superior model can be identified. We also consider out-of-sample loss functions based on Value-at-Risk that mimic portfolio managers and regulators’ preferences. EGARCH models display the best performance in this case.GARCH models; kurtosis; oil prices; forecasting

A Further Look at the 2004 Reform of the Operational Framework of the ECB

This note reconsiders the impact of the reform of the operational framework of the European Central Bank that took place in March 2004. We estimate a bivariate GARCH model with the overnight rate and 1-year swap rate, where identifying restrictions are imposed on the conditional variance. Differently from previous studies, we use a measure of structural correlation to show that the 1-year swap segment has decoupled from the overnight rate as the two rates do not co-vary any longer.Money Market; Multivariate GARCH; Structural Identification

Equilibrium Selection in a Cashless Economy with Transaction Frictions in the Bond Market

The present paper introduces two bonds in a standard New-Keynesian model to study the role of segmentation in bond markets for the determinacy of rational expectations equilibria. We use a strongly-separable utility function to model ‘liquid’ bonds that provide transaction services for the purchase of consumption goods. ‘Illiquid’ bonds, instead, provide the standard services of store of value. We interpret liquid bonds as mimicking short-term instruments, and illiquid bonds to represent long-dated instruments. In this simple setting, the expectation hypothesis holds after log-linearizing the model and after pricing the bonds according to an affine scheme. We assume that monetary policy follows a standard Taylor rule. In this context, the inflation targeting parameter should be higher than one for determinacy of rational expectations equilibria to be achieved. We compute an analytical solution for the bond pricing kernel. We also show that the possibility of obtaining this analytical solution depends on the type of utility function. When utility is weakly separable between consumption and liquid bonds, the Taylor principle holds conditional to the output and inflation coefficients in the Taylor rule. Achieving solution determinacy requires constraining these coefficients within bounds that depend on the structural parameters of the model, like the intertemporal elasticity of consumption substitution.term structure, determinacy, pricing kernel, fiscal and monetary policy