Monetary policy

Post n°292

How well have ECB rate hikes been transmitted to the money market?

Published on 11/25/2022

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By Benoit Nguyen and Miklos Vari

Since July, the ECB increased its key interest rates by 200 basis points in total (once by 50bps and twice by 75 bps). These are the largest single rate hikes of the ECB key interest rates. In this post, we examine to what extent these changes of policy rates passed through to the money market, the first step of monetary policy transmission. Transmission has been nearly complete in the unsecured market (e.g. on €STR) but subdued in the secured market (i.e. on repo transactions).

Graph 1: Changes for unsecured money market rates from July to November 2022
Graph 1: Changes for unsecured money market rates from July to November 2022 Source: ECB, Statistical Data Warehouse. Note: DFR stands for Deposit Facility Rate.
Updated on 11/25/2022 08:58
Post n°285

What lessons from US evidence on the heterogeneity in inflation expectations?

Published on 10/07/2022

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By Camille Cornand (Univ Lyon, CNRS, GATE), Paul Hubert

Monetary policy consists in part in managing inflation expectations of different agents. New US evidence on heterogeneous frequency of forecast revisions and disagreement among various categories of agents (households, firms, professional forecasters) suggests that targeting communication to specific groups could be a useful tool for central bankers.

Figure 1 – Distribution of inflation expectations in the US
Figure 1 – Distribution of inflation expectations in the US Source: authors’ computations.
Updated on 10/07/2022 08:26
Post n°282

GDP-linked bonds: the bewitching song of the sirens

Published on 09/01/2022

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Par Sarah Mouabbi, Jean-Paul Renne and Jean-Guillaume Sahuc

Debt-to-GDP ratios in advanced economies increased considerably during the Great Recession and the recent pandemic, and may prove to be a source of vulnerability. Commentators propose indexing the debt service to GDP growth to provide the government with an automatic stabilizer for its financing. FNew fndings suggest that GDP-linked bonds are more expensive for the government and can only prevent high tail risks in debt-to-GDP ratios in the short run.

Chart 1 : Realized vs. expected real payoffs of one-year bonds with unit face value
Chart 1 : Realized vs. expected real payoffs of one-year bonds with unit face value Source: Mouabbi, Renne and Sahuc (2021).
Updated on 09/01/2022 08:38
Post n°281

A global shock to bond yields?

Published on 08/03/2022

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By Mattia Girotti, Guillaume Horny, Adrian Penalver and Anna Petronevich  

The co-movement of sovereign bond yields has been unusually strong in the most recent period. A global factor usually explains much of the variation in 10-year yields. What has been particularly striking over the recent months is the importance of a global factor in explaining 2-year yields. This suggests a common shock is driving expectations of monetary policy in the major advanced economies.

Chart 1 Global-local decomposition of French 2-year and 10-year sovereign yields
Chart 1 Global-local decomposition of French 2-year and 10-year sovereign yields Source: Bloomberg, authors’ calculations. Note: Solid lines represent the yields. Areas show the contribution of each factor relative to the 2015-2022 average rate. Latest observation: 06/07/2022.
Updated on 08/03/2022 09:02
Post n°277

Does robot density influence the effects of monetary policy?

Published on 07/05/2022

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By Stéphane Lhuissier

In a context where industrial jobs may be replaced by robots, this post shows that monetary policy is transmitted differently depending on industrial sectors’ degree of robotisation. Jobs in heavily robotised industries are half as sensitive to an interest rate change as those in low-robotisation industries.

Chart 1: Monetary policy transmission is weakened in heavily robotised industries
Chart 1: Monetary policy transmission is weakened in heavily robotised industries Source: Author’s calculations.
Updated on 07/15/2022 12:03
Post n°275

What are business leaders’ inflation expectations?

Published on 06/23/2022

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By Paul Bouche, Julien Demuynck, Erwan Gautier, Frédérique Savignac

For the first time, the Banque de France is publishing the results of a survey on business leaders’ inflation expectations, collected since the end of 2021. One-year inflation expectations have increased since the beginning of the year and their median stands at 5% in the second quarter of 2022. Longer-term expectations (3-5 years) are also rising, but more slowly, with a median of 3%. This survey was conducted prior to the ECB's monetary policy normalisation announced on 9 June, which is expected to contribute to the gradual "re-anchoring" of inflation expectations.

Chart 1: Changes in inflation expectations since end-2021 in France (median in %)
Chart 1: Changes in inflation expectations since end-2021 in France (median in %) Note: median weighted by the number of employees in the company and the value added in the company's sector, 1% of the highest responses are not taken into account in the calculations. Source: IE-Banque de France survey.
Updated on 06/23/2022 16:33
Post n°261

Advantages of point targets and drawbacks of target ranges

Published on 03/15/2022

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By Christoph Grosse Steffen and Magali Marx

A central bank’s inflation objective can be formulated using a point target, a target range or a combination of the two. In this blog, we show the disadvantages of a target range for anchoring inflation expectations and for macroeconomic stabilisation. The analysis thereby underpins the ECB’s adoption of a clear and symmetric 2% inflation point target.

Chart 1: Inflation objectives, Q2 2020
Chart 1: Inflation objectives, Q2 2020 Source: Central bank websites, authors’ illustration.
Updated on 03/15/2022 17:33
Post n°253

Including owner-occupied housing costs in the measurement of inflation

Published on 01/31/2022

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By Julien André, Yannick Kalantzis , Antoine Lalliard and Paul Vertier

The harmonised measure of inflation currently published in the euro area does not take into account costs related to owner-occupied housing. There are several ways of capturing these costs, including the “imputed rent” and “net acquisition” approaches. Incorporating these costs into the measure of inflation produces different results depending on the method used, and the size and sign of the impact vary over time.

Chart 1: HICP and HICP augmented with imputed rents and with the acquisition price of housing in the euro area (% change year-on-year)
Chart 1: HICP and HICP augmented with imputed rents and with the acquisition price of housing in the euro area (% change year-on-year) Source: Eurostat for the HICP, Banque de France calculations for the augmented HICP. By convention, a weighting of 15% is applied to the price of owner-occupied housing in the euro area.
Updated on 01/31/2022 17:13
Post n°251

Monetary-fiscal policy interactions: the post-pandemic challenges

Published on 01/18/2022

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By Jean Barthélemy, Katja Schmidt and Giulia Sestieri

Both monetary and fiscal expansions have been needed during the past recent period in the euro area to sustain demand and inflation, mitigate the costs of the pandemic crisis and ensure a robust recovery. Conflicts of objectives between the two policies could, however, arise again in the future, in particular as a result of the ongoing accumulation of public debts and the large expansion of the Eurosystem’s balance sheet. Building on the work done during the recent ECB strategy review, this blog recalls the recent monetary and fiscal actions and presents some of the trade-offs for the post-pandemic period.

Chart 1. Public debt to GDP ratio in the euro area and for its largest countries (left hand side axis) and evolution of the Eurosystem balance sheet over GDP (right hand size axis)
Chart 1. Public debt to GDP ratio in the euro area and for its largest countries (left hand side axis) and evolution of the Eurosystem balance sheet over GDP (right hand size axis) Source: Eurostat, National accounts, Eurosystem data. Authors’ calculation.
Updated on 01/18/2022 18:46
Post n°250

The Fed’s monetary policy influences the US corporate debt structure

Published on 01/14/2022

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Urszula Szczerbowicz

The Fed’s monetary policy influences firms’ debt composition. Conventional monetary policy (CMP) easing increases firms’ bank loans and reduces their bond issuance, while unconventional monetary policy (UMP) easing stimulates corporate bond issuance. UMP affects the US corporate debt structure through a portfolio-rebalancing channel, rather than a bank lending one.

Chart 1: Evolution of loans and debt securities of US non-financial corporations
Chart 1: Evolution of loans and debt securities of US non-financial corporations Source: Financial Accounts of the United States, L.103.
Updated on 01/14/2022 14:15

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