Category Archives: Federal Reserve

Measuring monetary policy shocks

What are the effects on the economy when the Fed raises interest rates? This is a key question in empirical research, but is notoriously hard to answer. The reason is that when the Fed raises interest rates, it usually does so in anticipation of a stronger economy or rising inflation. If we look at what happens to inflation or output following an interest rate hike, it is impossible to distinguish the effect of the Fed’s actions from the effects of the changing fundamentals that led the Fed to act in the first place. New research by a graduate student at UCSD may have finally solved this problem.
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Guest Contribution: “International Macroeconomics in the wake of the Global Financial Crisis”

Today, we are pleased to present a guest contribution written by Laurent Ferrara (Banque de France), Ignacio Hernando (Banco de España) and Daniela Marconi (Banca d’Italia), summarizing the introductory chapter of their book International Macroeconomics in the wake of the Global Financial Crisis. The views expressed here are those solely of the author and do not reflect those of their respective institutions.


A decade after the eruption of the Global Financial Crisis (GFC), the world economy has finally returned to a more sustained pace of expansion (see Fig. 1).


Figure 1: World GDP annual growth (in %, constant prices). Source: IMF, World Economic Outlook, April 2018 and July 2018 update
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