Is Monetary Policy Still Seasonal?

Richard Crump, Keshav Dogra and Dennis Kongoli

No 20251119, Liberty Street Economics from Federal Reserve Bank of New York

Abstract: A 2012 Liberty Street Economics post noted that U.S. monetary policy exhibits a surprising degree of seasonal behavior: over the 1987-2008 period, the Federal Reserve was much more likely to lower interest rates (or abstain from raising rates) in the first month of each quarter than in the two subsequent months. Thirteen years later, we revisit that analysis to investigate whether the seasonal pattern in monetary policy still holds today, in the wake of a rate hiking cycle, a pandemic, a surge in inflation, and a second round of rate hikes. We find that the pattern has indeed continued; however, unlike in the earlier sample period, it can be completely explained by the timing of the FOMC calendar.

Keywords: monetary policy; seasonality; federal funds rate (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025-11-19
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-mon
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:fip:fednls:102127

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DOI: 10.59576/lse.20251119

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