The Short Lags of Monetary Policy

Gergely Buda, Vasco Carvalho, Giancarlo Corsetti, Joao Duarte, Stephen Hansen, Afonso S. Moura, Alvaro Ortiz, Tomasa Rodrigo, Jose V. Rodriguez Mora and Guilherme Alves da Silva

Cambridge Working Papers in Economics from Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge

Abstract: We examine the transmission of monetary policy shocks to the macroeconomy at high frequency. To do so, we construct daily consumption and investment aggregates from bank transaction records and leverage administrative data on daily corporate sales and employment for Spain. We show that variables typically viewed as slow-moving, such as consumption and corporate sales, respond significantly within weeks. By contrast, aggregate employment and (monthly) consumer prices adjust only gradually. Disaggregating responses by sector, consumption category, and supply-chain distance from final demand, we find that fast demand adjustment is led by downstream sectors closely tied to consumption—especially luxury goods and durables—while upstream sectors respond more slowly but more persistently, ultimately accounting for the contraction in aggregate activity. Excess inventories accumulate first in retail and wholesale trade and only later among upstream manufacturers, reconciling the rapid adjustment of sales with the slower response of production and employment. Finally, we show that time aggregation to the quarterly frequency obscures the timing of monetary policy transmission by shifting estimated responses to longer horizons, whereas weekly and monthly aggregation preserve the patterns observed at daily frequency..

Keywords: Event-study; Monetary Policy; Economic Activity; High-Frequency Data; Local Projections (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E31 E43 E44 E52 E58 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026-09-02
Note: vmpmdc2
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.econ.cam.ac.uk/sites/default/files/pub ... pe-pdfs/cwpe2509.pdf

Related works:
Working Paper: The Short Lags of Monetary Policy (2025)
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:cam:camdae:2509

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Cambridge Working Papers in Economics from Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Jake Dyer ().