U S Monetary Policy Normalization And Global Interest Rates

As the Federal Reserve continues to normalize its monetary policy, this paper studies the impact of U.S. interest rates on rates in other countries. We find a modest but nontrivial pass-through from U.S. to domestic short-term interest rates on average. We show that, to a large extent, this comovement reflects synchronized business cycles. However, there is important heterogeneity across countries, and we find evidence of limited monetary autonomy in some cases. The co-movement of longer term interest rates is larger and more pervasive. We distinguish between U.S. interest rate movements that surprise markets versus those that are anticipated, and find that most countries receive greater spillovers from the former. We also distinguish between movements in the U.S. term premium and the expected path of risk-free rates, concluding that countries respond differently to these shocks. Finally, we explore the determinants of monetary autonomy and find strong evidence for the role of exchange rate flexibility, capital account openness, but also for other factors, such as dollarization of financial system liabilities, and the credibility of fiscal and monetary policy.

This paper examines the transmission of changes in the U.S. monetary policy to localcurrency sovereign bond yields of Brazil and Mexico. Using vector error-correction models, we find that the U.S. 10-year bond yield was a key driver of long-term yields in these countries, and that Brazilian yields were more sensitive to U.S. shocks than Mexican yields during 2010–13. Remarkably, the propagation of shocks from U.S. long-term yields was amplified by changes in the policy rate in Brazil, but not in Mexico. Our counterfactual analysis suggests that yields in both countries temporarily overshot the values predicted by the model in the aftermath of the Fed’s “tapering” announcement in May 2013. This study suggests that emerging markets will need to contend with potential spillovers from shifts in monetary policy expectations in the U.S., which often lead to higher government bond interest rates and bouts of volatility.

Provides an in-depth overview of the Federal Reserve System, including information about monetary policy and the economy, the Federal Reserve in the international sphere, supervision and regulation, consumer and community affairs and services offered by Reserve Banks. Contains several appendixes, including a brief explanation of Federal Reserve regulations, a glossary of terms, and a list of additional publications.

Global financial conditions are poised to tighten further as the global recovery proceeds. While monetary policy normalization should be a healthy global development as growth continues to recover in advanced economies, financial spillovers seen during the taper episode—which started with the announcement in May 2013 of possible tapering of U.S. asset purchases—hint at potential challenges for Brazil. The Fed’s communications related to normalization have improved significantly since the taper episode and, at present, a rise in Fed Funds rate in 2015 is widely anticipated by markets—arguably the most widely anticipated tightening of monetary policy in history. While Brazil could benefit from tighter global financial conditions associated with improved global prospects, bouts of heightened uncertainty about the future course of monetary policy cannot be ruled out. Thus, the correct diagnosis of the underlying reasons behind tighter global financial conditions remains crucially important for Brazil. Adverse spillovers can be mitigated by strengthening policy frameworks and fundamentals.

This paper studies the main channels through which interest rate normalization has fiscal implications in the United States. While unexpected inflation reduces the real value of government liabilities, a rising policy rate increases government financing needs because of higher interest payments and lower real bond prices. After an initial decline, the real government debt burden rises even with higher tax revenues in an expansion. Given the current net debt-to-GDP ratio at around 80 percent, interest rate normalization leads to a negligible increase in the sovereign default risk of the U.S. federal government, despite a much higher federal debt-to-GDP ratio than the post-war historical average.

The New York Times bestseller from business journalist Christopher Leonard infiltrates one of America’s most mysterious institutions—the Federal Reserve—to show how its policies spearheaded by Chairman Jerome Powell over the past ten years have accelerated income inequality and put our country’s economic stability at risk. If you asked most people what forces led to today’s unprecedented income inequality and financial crashes, no one would say the Federal Reserve. For most of its history, the Fed has enjoyed the fawning adoration of the press. When the economy grew, it was credited to the Fed. When the economy imploded in 2008, the Fed got credit for rescuing us. But here, for the first time, is the inside story of how the Fed has reshaped the American economy for the worse. It all started on November 3, 2010, when the Fed began a radical intervention called quantitative easing. In just a few short years, the Fed more than quadrupled the money supply with one goal: to encourage banks and other investors to extend more risky debt. Leaders at the Fed knew that they were undertaking a bold experiment that would produce few real jobs, with long-term risks that were hard to measure. But the Fed proceeded anyway…and then found itself trapped. Once it printed all that money, there was no way to withdraw it from circulation. The Fed tried several times, only to see the market start to crash, at which point the Fed turned the money spigot back on. That’s what it did when COVID hit, printing 300 years’ worth of money in a few short months. Which brings us to now: Ten years on, the gap between the rich and poor has grown dramatically, inflation is raging, and the stock market is driven by boom, busts, and bailouts. Middle-class Americans seem stuck in a stage of permanent stagnation, with wage gains wiped out by high prices even as they remain buried under credit card debt, car loan debt, and student debt. Meanwhile, the “too big to fail” banks remain bigger and more powerful than ever while the richest Americans enjoy the gains of a hyper-charged financial system. The Lords of Easy Money “skillfully” (The Wall Street Journal) tells the “fascinating” (The New York Times) tale of how quantitative easing is imperiling the American economy through the story of the one man who tried to warn us. This is the first inside story of how we really got here—and why our economy rests on such unstable ground.