International Dimensions of Monetary Policy


Book Description

United States monetary policy has traditionally been modeled under the assumption that the domestic economy is immune to international factors and exogenous shocks. Such an assumption is increasingly unrealistic in the age of integrated capital markets, tightened links between national economies, and reduced trading costs. International Dimensions of Monetary Policy brings together fresh research to address the repercussions of the continuing evolution toward globalization for the conduct of monetary policy. In this comprehensive book, the authors examine the real and potential effects of increased openness and exposure to international economic dynamics from a variety of perspectives. Their findings reveal that central banks continue to influence decisively domestic economic outcomes—even inflation—suggesting that international factors may have a limited role in national performance. International Dimensions of Monetary Policy will lead the way in analyzing monetary policy measures in complex economies.




Monetary Policy and the Oil Market


Book Description

While oil price fluctuations in the past can be explained by pure supply factors, this book argues that it is monetary policy that plays a significant role in setting global oil prices. It is a key factor often neglected in much of the earlier literature on the determinants of asset prices, including oil prices. However, this book presents a framework for modeling oil prices while incorporating monetary policy. It also provides a complete theoretical basis of the determinants of crude oil prices and the transmission channels of oil shocks to the economy. Moreover, using several up-to-date surveys and examples from the real world, this book gives insight into the empirical side of energy economics. The empirical studies offer explanations for the impact of monetary policy on crude oil prices in different periods including during the subprime mortgage crisis of 2008–2009, the impact of oil price variations on developed and emerging economies, the effectiveness of monetary policy in the Japanese economy incorporating energy prices, and the macroeconomic impacts of oil price movements in trade-linked cases. This must-know information on energy economics is presented in a reader-friendly format without being overloaded with excessive and complicated calculations. enUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Subtle Emphasis"/>




The Distributional Implications of the Impact of Fuel Price Increases on Inflation


Book Description

This paper investigates the response of consumer price inflation to changes in domestic fuel prices, looking at the different categories of the overall consumer price index (CPI). We then combine household survey data with the CPI components to construct a CPI index for the poorest and richest income quintiles with the view to assess the distributional impact of the pass-through. To undertake this analysis, the paper provides an update to the Global Monthly Retail Fuel Price Database, expanding the product coverage to premium and regular fuels, the time dimension to December 2020, and the sample to 190 countries. Three key findings stand out. First, the response of inflation to gasoline price shocks is smaller, but more persistent and broad-based in developing economies than in advanced economies. Second, we show that past studies using crude oil prices instead of retail fuel prices to estimate the pass-through to inflation significantly underestimate it. Third, while the purchasing power of all households declines as fuel prices increase, the distributional impact is progressive. But the progressivity phases out within 6 months after the shock in advanced economies, whereas it persists beyond a year in developing countries.




Commodity Prices and Markets


Book Description

Fluctuations of commodity prices, most notably of oil, capture considerable attention and have been tied to important economic effects. This book advances our understanding of the consequences of these fluctuations, providing both general analysis and a particular focus on the countries of the Pacific Rim.




Japanese Monetary Policy


Book Description

How has the Bank of Japan (BOJ) helped shape Japan's economic growth during the past two decades? This book comprehensively explores the relations between financial market liberalization and BOJ policies and examines the ways in which these policies promoted economic growth in the 1980s. The authors argue that the structure of Japan's financial markets, particularly restrictions on money-market transactions and the key role of commercial banks in financing corporate investments, allowed the BOJ to influence Japan's economic success. The first two chapters provide the most in-depth English-language discussion of the BOJ's operating procedures and policymaker's views about how BOJ actions affect the Japanese business cycle. Chapter three explores the impact of the BOJ's distinctive window guidance policy on corporate investment, while chapter four looks at how monetary policy affects the term structure of interest rates in Japan. The final two chapters examine the overall effect of monetary policy on real aggregate economic activity. This volume will prove invaluable not only to economists interested in the technical operating procedures of the BOJ, but also to those interested in the Japanese economy and in the operation and outcome of monetary reform in general.




Global Implications of Lower Oil Prices


Book Description

The sharp drop in oil prices is one of the most important global economic developments over the past year. The SDN finds that (i) supply factors have played a somewhat larger role than demand factors in driving the oil price drop, (ii) a substantial part of the price decline is expected to persist into the medium term, although there is large uncertainty, (iii) lower oil prices will support global growth, (iv) the sharp oil price drop could still trigger financial strains, and (v) policy responses should depend on the terms-of-trade impact, fiscal and external vulnerabilities, and domestic cyclical position.




Economic Policy and the Great Stagflation


Book Description

Economic Policy and the Great Stagflation discusses the national economic policy and economics as a policy-oriented science. This book summarizes what economists do and do not know about the inflation and recession that affected the U.S. economy during the years of the Great Stagflation in the mid-1970s. The topics discussed include the basic concepts of stagflation, turbulent economic history of 1971-1976, anatomy of the great recession and inflation, and legacy of the Great Stagflation. The relation of wage-price controls, fiscal policy, and monetary policy to the Great Stagflation is also elaborated. This publication is beneficial to economists and students researching on the history of the Great Stagflation and policy errors of the 1970s.




The Effects of Oil Price Changes on the Industry-level Production and Prices in the U.S. and Japan


Book Description

In this paper, we decompose oil price changes into their component parts following Kilian (2009) and estimate the dynamic effects of each component on industry-level production and prices in the U.S. and Japan using identified VAR models. The way oil price changes affect each industry depends on what kind of underlying shock drives oil price changes as well as on industry characteristics. Unexpected disruptions of oil supply act mainly as negative supply shocks for oil- intensive industries and act mainly as negative demand shocks for less oil-intensive industries. For most industries in the U.S., shocks to the global demand for all industrial commodities act mainly as positive demand shocks, and demand shocks that are specific to the global oil market act mainly as negative supply shocks. In Japan, the oil-specific demand shocks as well as the global demand shocks act mainly as positive demand shocks for many industries.




Oil Shocks and External Balances


Book Description

This paper studies the effects of demand and supply shocks in the global crude oil market on several measures of countries' external balance, including the oil and non-oil trade balances, the current account, and changes in net foreign assets (NFA) during 1975-2004. We explicitly take a global perspective. In addition to the U.S., the Euro area and Japan, we consider a number of country groups including oil exporters and middle-income oil-importing economies. We find that the effect of oil shocks on the merchandise trade balance and the current account, which depending on the source of the shock can be large, depends critically on the response of the nonoil trade balance, and differs systematically between the U.S. and other oil importing countries. Using the Lane-Milesi-Ferretti NFA data set, we document the presence of large and systematic (if not always statistically significant) valuation effects in response to oil shocks, not only for the U.S., but also for other oil-importing economies and for oil exporters. Our estimates suggest that increased international financial integration will tend to cushion the effect of oil shocks on NFA positions for major oil exporters and the U.S., but may amplify it for other oil importers.




Asset Prices and Monetary Policy


Book Description

Economic growth, low inflation, and financial stability are among the most important goals of policy makers, and central banks such as the Federal Reserve are key institutions for achieving these goals. In Asset Prices and Monetary Policy, leading scholars and practitioners probe the interaction of central banks, asset markets, and the general economy to forge a new understanding of the challenges facing policy makers as they manage an increasingly complex economic system. The contributors examine how central bankers determine their policy prescriptions with reference to the fluctuating housing market, the balance of debt and credit, changing beliefs of investors, the level of commodity prices, and other factors. At a time when the public has never been more involved in stocks, retirement funds, and real estate investment, this insightful book will be useful to all those concerned with the current state of the economy.