Three Liquidity Crises in Retrospective: Implications for Central Banking Today

Liquidity problems lie at the heart of crises on financial markets as demonstrated in this paper by detailed descriptions of the stock market crash in 1987, the LTCM-crisis in 1998 and the financial market consequences of 11 September 2001. The events also demonstrate that modern central banks, in particular the U.S. Federal Reserve under Alan Greenspan, provided emergency liquidity to limit the negative effects of such crises. However, the anecdotal and empirical evidence from the three crises shows that such emergency liquidity assistance implies risks to goods price stability if it is not focused on the interbank market and quickly sterilised

Liquidity Risk and Monetary Policy

This paper provides a framework to analyse emergency liquidity assistance of central banks on financial markets in response to aggregate and idiosyncratic liquidity shocks. The model combines the microeconomic view of liquidity as the ability to sell assets quickly and at low costs and the macroeconomic view of liquidity as a medium of exchange that influences the aggregate price level of goods. The central bank faces a trade-off between limiting the negative output effects of dramatic asset price declines and more inflation. Furthermore, the anticipation of central bank intervention causes a moral hazard effect with investors. This gives rise to the possibility of an optimal monetary policy under commitment.Liquidity shocks; Financial crises; Liquidity provision principle; Greenspan put; Optimal monetary policy intervention

Discretion rather than rules? When is discretionary policy-making better than the timeless perspective?

Discretionary monetary policy produces a dynamic loss in the New Keynesian model in the presence of cost-push shocks. The possibility to commit to a specific policy rule can increase welfare. A number of authors since Woodford (1999) have argued in favour of a timeless perspective rule as an optimal policy. The short-run costs associated with the timeless perspective are neglected in general, however. Rigid prices, relatively impatient households, a high preference of policy makers for output stabilisation and a deviation from the steady state all worsen the performance of the timeless perspective rule and can make it inferior to discretion. JEL Classification: E5Optimality, Policy rules, Timeless perspective

Using Taylor Rules to Understand ECB Monetary Policy

Over the last decade, the simple instrument policy rule developed by Taylor (1993) has become a popular tool for evaluating monetary policy of central banks. As an extensive empirical analysis of the ECB’s past behaviour still seems to be in its infancy, we estimate several instrument policy reaction functions for the ECB which might shed some light on actual monetary policy in the euro area in the recent past and answer questions like whether the ECB has actually followed a stabilising or a destabilising rule so far?Looking at contemporaneous Taylor rules, the presented evidence suggests that the ECB is accommodating changes in inflation and hence follows a destabilising policy. However, this impression seems to be largely due to the lack of a forward-looking perspective in such specifications. Either assuming rational expectations and using a forward-looking specification, or using expectations as derived from surveys result in Taylor rules which do imply a stabilising role of the ECB. The use of real-time industrial production data does not seem to play such a significant role as in the case of the U.S.Taylor rule, European Central Bank, real-time data

Liquidity Risk and Monetary Policy

This paper provides a framework to analyse emergency liquidity assistance of central banks on financial markets in response to aggregate and idiosyncratic liquidity shocks. The model combines the microeconomic view of liquidity as the ability to sell assets quickly and at low costs and the macroeconomic view of liquidity as a medium of exchange that influences the aggregate price level of goods. The central bank faces a trade-off between limiting the negative output effects of dramatic asset price declines and more inflation. Furthermore, the anticipation of central bank intervention causes a moral hazard effect with investors. This gives rise to the possibility of an optimal monetary policy under commitment

Konsequenzen der Inflationsunterschiede im Euroraum

Im Zuge der Gründung der Europäischen Währungsunion übernahm die Europäische Zentralbank im Januar 1999 die Verantwortung für eine einheitliche Geldpolitik im Euroraum. Während damit Nominalzinsunterschiede innerhalb der EWU praktisch der Vergangenheit angehören, existieren weiterhin nicht zu vernachlässigende Unterschiede bei den Inflationsraten. Diese haben sowohl strukturelle Ursachen als auch eine konjunkturelle Komponente. Vielfältige Rigiditäten in der EWU tragen dazu bei, dass Inflationsunterschiede hier länger als in anderen Währungsräumen bestehen bleiben. Dadurch sind auch die realwirtschaftlichen Konsequenzen der konjunkturellen Komponente im Euroraum ausgeprägter. Zum Beispiel hat ein Land mit dauerhaft höheren Inflationsraten den Vorteil niedrigerer Realzinsen. Bei niedrigen Realzinsen werden sich mehr reale Investitionen, etwa in Immobilien, lohnen als in den Ländern mit höheren Realzinsen. Als Resultat ergibt sich ein tendenziell höherer Investitionsanteil an der gesamtwirtschaftlichen Produktion, die sich dadurch selbst auch erhöht. Aus der höheren Inflationsrate resultiert aber gleichzeitig eine stetige Verschlechterung der Wettbewerbsposition, da Preise und Löhne stärker steigen als im Partnerland. Der reale Wechselkurs der Länder divergiert somit stetig. Während also Realzinsdifferenzen zu einer dauerhaft unterschiedlichen Entwicklung beitragen, führt der reale Wechselkurs eher zu einer Konvergenz zwischen den Ländern einer Währungsunion. Letztlich stellt sich die Frage, welcher dieser Mechanismen überwiegt. Die EZB argumentiert, dass mittelfristig der Wettbewerbskanal die "entscheidende Triebfeder für eine Anpassung" sein wird. Vor diesem Hintergrund untersucht der Beitrag, inwiefern sich diese Behauptung mit realwirtschaftlichen Daten der Euro-Mitgliedsländer bestätigen lässt.Inflationsrate, Europäische Wirtschafts- und Währungsunion, Geldpolitik, Zins, Realkredit, Realzins, Wechselkurs, Deutschland

Defizite der rheinland-pfälzischen Vollzugspraxis bei der Bodenauffüllung landwirtschaftlich genutzter Flächen

Die Auswertung von Anträgen auf Genehmigung von Bodenauffüllungen offenbart deutliche Vollzugsdefizite bei der Umsetzung von § 12 BBodSchV in Rheinland-Pfalz: Zum einen werden landwirtschaftlich genutzte Böden aufgefüllt, die ihre Bodenfunktionen schon heute im besonderen Maße erfüllen. Zum anderen fehlen den Genehmigungsbehörden landesweit einheitliche Vorgaben bei der Bearbeitung der Antragsunterlagen

Three Liquidity Crises in Retrospective: Implications for Central Banking Today

Liquidity problems lie at the heart of crises on financial markets as demonstrated in this paper by detailed descriptions of the stock market crash in 1987, the LTCM-crisis in 1998 and the financial market consequences of 11 September 2001. The events also demonstrate that modern central banks, in particular the U.S. Federal Reserve under Alan Greenspan, provided emergency liquidity to limit the negative effects of such crises. However, the anecdotal and empirical evidence from the three crises shows that such emergency liquidity assistance implies risks to goods price stability if it is not focused on the interbank market and quickly sterilised

Frameworks for the Theoretical and Empirical Analysis of Monetary Policy

This thesis develops and applies three different frameworks to analyse monetary policy from a theoretical and empirical perspective within three self-contained chapters. Chapter 2 looks at optimal monetary policy in the modern micro-founded New Keynesian macroeconomic model, while chapter 3 offers an empirical investigation of monetary policy in the euro area. The final chapter 4 combines a microeconomic model of liquidity shocks on an asset market that includes features of market microstructure theory with a model of the goods market inspired by nominal rigidities as common in macroeconomic models. All three chapters are connected by the prominent role of different policy rules