The Neutral Interest Rate

Rachael McCririck and Daniel Rees
Additional contact information
Rachael McCririck: Reserve Bank of Australia

RBA Bulletin (Print copy discontinued), 2017, 09-18

Abstract: Central banks monitor the neutral interest rate for a number of reasons, a key one being that it provides a benchmark for assessing the stance of monetary policy. This article describes the determinants of the neutral interest rate and discusses its trends in Australia over recent decades. We estimate that Australia’s neutral interest rate has declined by 150 basis points since 2007 and is currently around 1 per cent. However, because we cannot observe the neutral rate directly, there is considerable uncertainty around these estimates. The fall over the past decade is largely attributable to a decline in the economy’s potential growth rate and an increase in risk aversion of households and firms.

Keywords: neutral interest rate; monetary policy; cash rate; potential growth (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (13)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/bulletin/2017/ ... al-interest-rate.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:rba:rbabul:sep2017-02

Access Statistics for this article

RBA Bulletin (Print copy discontinued) is currently edited by Luci Ellis

More articles in RBA Bulletin (Print copy discontinued) from Reserve Bank of Australia Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Paula Drew ().