Pushing on a String: US Monetary Policy Is Less Powerful in Recessions

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Tenreyro, Silvana; Thwaites, Gregory
• 署名单位: University of London; London School Economics & Political Science; Bank of England
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC JOURNAL-MACROECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1945-7707
• DOI: 10.1257/mac.20150016
• 发表日期: 2016
• 页码: 43-74
• 关键词: shocks

摘要

We investigate how the response of the US economy to monetary policy shocks depends on the state of the business cycle. The effects of monetary policy are less powerful in recessions, especially for durables expenditure and business investment. The asymmetry relates to how fast the economy is growing, rather than to the level of resource utilization. There is some evidence that fiscal policy has counteracted monetary policy in recessions but reinforced it in booms. We also find evidence that contractionary policy shocks are more powerful than expansionary shocks, but contractionary shocks have not been more common in booms. So this asymmetry cannot explain our main finding.