What are the macroeconomic effects of asset purchases?

AbstractThe impact of announcements of large-scale purchases of government bonds on real GDP and the CPI in the United Kingdom and the United States is explored with a Bayesian VAR, estimated on monthly data from 2009M3 to 2014M5. Four different identification schemes are used, all leaving the reactions of GDP and CPI unrestricted, and the transmission channels of the policy are examined. An asset purchase announcement of 1% of GDP leads to a statistically significant rise of 0.58% (0.25%) and 0.62% (0.32%) rise in real GDP and CPI for the US (UK). The transmission channels differ in the two countries

Monetary Policy, Capital Inflows, and the Housing Boom

We estimate an open economy VAR model to quantify the effect of monetary policy and capital inflows shocks on the US housing market. The shocks are identified with sign restrictions derived from a standard DSGE model. We find that monetary policy shocks have a limited effect on house prices and residential investment. In contrast, capital inflows shocks driven by an increase in foreign savings have a positive and persistent effect on both housing variables. Other sources of capital inflows shocks, such as foreign monetary expansion or an increase in aggregate demand in the US, have a more limited role

Monetary Policy, Capital Inflows, and the Housing Boom

We estimate an open economy VAR model to quantify the effect of monetary policy and capital inflows shocks on the US housing market. The shocks are identified with sign restrictions derived from a standard DSGE model. We find that monetary policy shocks have a limited effect on house prices and residential investment. In contrast, capital inflows shocks driven by an increase in foreign savings have a positive and persistent effect on both housing variables. Other sources of capital inflows shocks, such as foreign monetary expansion or an increase in aggregate demand in the US, have a more limited role.

The effect of unconventional monetary policy on inflation expectations: Evidence from firms in the UK

This paper investigates the effect of quantitative easing (QE) and other unconventional monetary policies on price and wage growth expectations of UK manufacturing firms. To identify the effect of QE on firms’ expectations, we use a novel approach of combining microeconometric data with macroeconomic shocks: QE is exogenous to inflation expectations of individual firms, and so are other macroeconomic developments like aggregate inflation or GDP growth. We find that firms’ price and wage inflation expectations increase by 0.22 percentage points in response to £50 billion of QE, implying that inflation expectations are part of the transmission mechanism of QE. In contrast, we find a positive but small and insignificant effect of forward guidance on price and wage inflation expectations