 Do Federal Reserve communications help predict federal funds target rate decisions?Bernd Hayo and Matthias Neuenkirch Journal of Macroeconomics, 2010, vol. 32, issue 4, 1014-1024 Abstract: We explain federal funds target rate decisions using macroeconomic variables and Federal Reserve communication indicators. Econometrically, we employ an ordered probit model of a Taylor rule to predict 75 target rate decisions between 1998 and 2006. We find, first, that our communication indicators significantly explain target rate decisions and improve explanatory power in and out of sample. Second, speeches by members of the Board of Governors and regional presidents have a statistically significant and equal-sized effect, whereas the less-frequent monetary policy reports and congressional hearings are insignificant. Third, our findings are robust to variations in the specification, including changes in the communication strategy. Finally, our communication indicator based on Federal Reserve speeches performs better in explaining target rate decisions than do newswire reports of Fed communications. Keywords: Central; bank; communication; Federal; Reserve; Bank; Interest; rate; decision; Monetary; policy; Federal; funds; target; rate; Taylor; rule (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jmacro:v:32:y:2010:i:4:p:1014-1024 Access Statistics for this article Journal of Macroeconomics is currently edited by Douglas McMillin and Theodore Palivos More articles in Journal of Macroeconomics from Elsevier |
Is your work missing from RePEc? Here is how to contribute.
Questions or problems? Check the EconPapers FAQ or send mail to .
EconPapers is hosted by the
School of Business at Örebro University.