The COVID‐19 crisis has revived an old heated debate on whether significant increases in the money supply ultimately lead to higher inflation. Some observers have alluded to the quantity theory of ...money for that purpose, though in our view, this has sometimes been in a misleading way. Against this background, this paper seeks to clarify several aspects of the quantity theory of money, which are useful to apply it fairly in the current world. First, we review the meaning of the velocity term in the quantity equation. We argue that it has no relevance as a behavioural concept: there is no such thing as a 'desired velocity'. Rather, income velocity should be seen as a variable deriving from a system of parameters and variables related to money demand, as the monetarist approach clearly puts it, with no intrinsic relevance. Second, we clarify the practical relevance that the quantity theory approach can bear in the 21st century. Third, we review the channels and assumptions underlying the asserted quantity theory link between money growth and inflation. In light of our analysis, we conclude that the high money growth rates seen since the pandemic outbreak are unlikely to translate into higher inflation rates.
We analyze how financial constraints can weigh on a central bank’s decision to exit a temporary currency peg, such as the one put in place in Switzerland between 2011 and 2015. We show that negative ...equity or insolvency concerns can force a central bank to exit such a peg earlier than it would have done absent such concerns. We detail under which conditions such reasoning can apply for a traditional inflation-averse central bank. We then build an exchange market pressure model fitting with current peg reality to forecast both the central bank future bond holdings under a peg as well as its future losses. Applying our model to the Swiss franc peg, we show that negative equity concerns could have motivated the Swiss central bank early and puzzling peg exit in 2015, thereby providing a potential explanation for the “Frankenshock”. ECB QE policy appears as a potential key driver of this decision.
•We model a central bank implementing a peg to prevent its currency from appreciating•We show how negative equity concerns can make a central bank exit such a peg early•We build an exchange market pressure model fitting to the Swiss central bank reality•We estimate counterfactuals on the SNB financial loss had it broken its peg later•The ECB QE policy would have made a later regime shift result in a negative equity
This paper examines whether weak central bank finances affect inflation by scrutinizing the key rationale for such a relationship: that the absence of Treasury support makes central bank finances ...relevant for price stability. Specifically, I ask whether central banks which are not likely to enjoy fiscal support when needed experience higher inflation as their financial situation deteriorates. I find this to be true among a large sample of 82 countries between 1998 and 2008.
De facto
potential fiscal support appears relevant, while
de jure
fiscal support, which I survey analyzing 82 central bank laws, does not appear to matter. The results also bring forward an explanation for the conflicting results of the previous empirical studies, which neglected this key component.
•We construct a new indicator to capture media sentiment about the European Central Bank (ECB) monetary policy.•We propose a methodology to dissociate the dissemination of official communications of ...the central bank from the media comments.•Both press conference and inter-meeting communications of the President of the ECB significantly affect media sentiment.•Daily changes in media sentiment have predictive power for financial market inflation expectation.
We construct a new indicator to capture media sentiment about the European Central Bank monetary policy and its relevant environment by analyzing 25,000 articles from five major international newspapers. Using named entity recognition and part-of-speech tagging, we propose a methodology to dissociate the dissemination of official communications of the central bank from the media comments. The resulting (daily) index correlates with some (monthly) standard measures of economic sentiment but reveals idiosyncratic information on monetary policy. Analyzing the determinants of our index, we find that both press conference and inter-meeting communications of the President significantly affect media sentiment. We then show that, controlling for a large range of factors, daily changes in media sentiment have predictive power for financial market inflation expectations.
Abstract
We investigate whether monetary policy announcements affect firms' and consumers' expectations by considering their media treatment. We initially use standard monetary policy surprise ...measures and analyze how the main general newspapers in France report on the announcements. Eighty‐five percent of the monetary policy surprises are either not associated with the newspapers reporting a change in the monetary policy stance or have a sign inconsistent with the media report. Only when we consider media‐consistent monetary policy surprises do we find that consumers and firms respond to monetary policy announcements. The economic tonality of the media reports drives the sign of consumers' response.
We construct a new indicator to capture media sentiment about the European Central Bank monetary policy and its relevant environment by analyzing 25,000 articles from five major international ...newspapers. Using named entity recognition and part-of-speech tagging, we propose a methodology to dissociate the dissemination of official communications of the central bank from the media comments. The resulting (daily) index correlates with some (monthly) standard measures of economic sentiment but reveals idiosyncratic information on monetary policy. Analyzing the determinants of our index, we find that both press conference and inter-meeting communications of the President significantly affect media sentiment. We then show that, controlling for a large range of factors, daily changes in media sentiment have predictive power for financial market inflation expectations.
This paper proposes an alternative benchmark to the EURIBOR to analyze the post-crisis puzzling behavior of deposit rates in the Eurozone. Using bank-level CDS data for 6 major Eurozone countries, we ...build a simple country-level index for banks’ cost of unsecured funding. The use of this index instead of the traditionally used EURIBOR restores the cointegration relationship between deposit rates and their reckoned opportunity cost. It also suggests that deposits have actually not been significantly over-remunerated in most euro area countries since the financial crisis, in contrast to what is often argued.
•We build an alternative benchmark to the EURIBOR.•We show that this benchmark is more relevant than the EURIBOR in explaining deposit rates in the Eurozone.•Most of the seemingly over-remuneration of deposits in the Eurozone appears to be due to the use of the wrong benchmark.
Cette thèse traite de deux nouveaux débats sur le central banking qui ont émergé après la crise financière de 2008: le débat sur les pertes financières aux bilans des banques centrales, et le débat ...sur le niveau élevé des taux bancaires par rapport aux taux de marché après la crise. Les deux premiers chapitres s’inscrivent dans le premier débat. Le lien entre la solidité financière des banques centrales et l’inflation est étudié empiriquement dans le premier chapitre, en se basant sur un large panel de 82 pays. Théoriquement, ce lien est potentiellement présent lorsque le gouvernement ne soutient pas financièrement la banque centrale et que celle-ci ne peut donc compter que sur elle-même pour améliorer sa situation financière. Les résultats du premier chapitre montrent qu’en pratique tel est effectivement le cas: les détériorations aux bilans des banques centrales s’accompagnent d’une inflation plus forte lorsque la banque centrale n’a pas de soutien fiscal. Les résultats ne montrent pas de lien dans un contexte général, comme la théorie le suggère. Dans le second chapitre, il est analysé et conceptualisé l’argument selon lequel une banque centrale peut mettre fin à un régime de change fixe ou quasi-fixe par peur de futures pertes financières. L’analyse est ensuite appliquée au cas du cours plancher mis en place par la Banque Centrale de Suisse (BNS) entre 2011 et 2015 vis-à-vis de l’euro. Cet argument a été avancé par beaucoup pour expliquer la fin de la politique de cours plancher en Suisse, sans qu’aucune recherche avant celle-ci n’évalue sa pertinence. Les estimations empiriques du Chapitre 2 permettent de montrer que cet argument avait une crédibilité: elles montrent que dans des scénarios crédibles, en cassant le peg avec l’euro 17 mois plus tard, la BNS aurait essuyé une perte considérable, dépassant un seuil perçu comme limite par beaucoup de banquiers centraux. Le dernier chapitre de cette thèse s’intéresse à l’écart entre les taux de dépôts et le taux de marché en zone euro (l’EURIBOR) qui est devenu significativement positif après la crise, conduisant certains à parler de « sur-rémunération » des dépôts. Ce chapitre soutient que la majorité de cet écart ne s’explique non pas par un comportement anormal des dépôts comme certains l’ont avancé, mais au contraire par une perte de pertinence de l’EURIBOR. Construisant une alternative à l’EURIBOR, ce chapitre conclut que le risque bancaire a eu une influence primordiale sur le niveau de rémunération des dépôts dans le monde d’après-crise.
This thesis deals with the new debates on central banking which arose after the 2008 global financial crisis. More particularly, two of such debates are addressed: the debates on the financial losses in central banks’ balance sheets, and the debates on the high level of bank rates compared to market interest rates following the financial crisis. The two first chapters are related to the first debate. The link between central bank financial strength and inflation is empirically examined in a large sample of 82 countries. Theoretically, this link is potentially present when the government does not fiscally support the central bank, so that the central bank can only rely on itself to improve its financial situation. The results show that in practice central bank balance sheet deteriorations indeed lead to higher inflation when fiscal support is absent. The results, based on a particularly meticulous and consistent sample selection, do not show the presence of a link between the two variables in a general context, as the theory suggests. In the second chapter, I analyze and conceptualize the argument according to which a central bank can end a peg exchange rate regime by fear of making significant losses in the future, and I apply this analysis to the Swiss franc peg between 2011 and 2015. This argument was brought forward by many commentators to explain the Swiss move, while no research before this one did study the relevance of this argument. The empirical estimates in Chapter 2 show that this argument indeed had some credibility: under some credible scenarios the Swiss central bank would have incurred significant losses by breaking its peg 17 months later, with losses exceeding a threshold judged as relevant by many central bankers. The last chapter of this thesis focuses on the spread between deposit rates and market interest rates in the Eurozone (more specifically, the EURIBOR), which became significantly positive after the financial crisis, leading some commentators to claim that deposits were over-remunerated. This chapter upholds that the major part of this spread is not due to an « abnormal » behavior of deposits but is rather due to the fact that the EURIBOR has become irrelevant after the global financial crisis. Building an alternative to the EURIBOR, the chapter concludes that banking risks have been having a major influence on the level of deposit remuneration.
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