LEARNING OBJECTIVES
After you have read this section, you should be able to answer the following questions:
What is the link between the actions of the Fed and the state of the economy?
What interest rate does the Fed target?
What components of aggregate spending depend on the interest rate?
The actions of monetary authorities, such as the Fed and other central banks around the world, influence interest rates and thus the levels of employment, output, and prices. The links between a central bank’s actions and overall economic performance are far from straightforward, however. The process is summarized by the monetary transmission mechanism (shown in Figure 10.2 "The Monetary Transmission Mechanism"), which is the heart of this chapter. The monetary transmission mechanism is more than just some theory that economists have devised to try to make sense of monetary policy. It summarizes how the Fed thinks about its own actions.
The monetary transmission mechanism explains how the actions of the Federal Reserve Bank affect aggregate economic variables, and in particular real gross domestic product (real GDP). More specifically, it shows how changes in the Federal Reserve’s target interest rate affect different interest rates in the economy and thus influence spending in the economy. Through open-market operations, the Fed targets a short-term nominal interest rate. Changes in that interest rate in turn affect long-term nominal interest rates. Changes in long-term nominal rates lead to changes in long-term real interest rates. Changes in long-term real interest rates affect investment and durable goods spending. Finally, changes in spending affect real GDP. We will examine every step of this process.
This chapter focuses on the effects of Fed actions, but essentially the same analysis applies to the study of monetary policy in other countries. The channels of influence are to a large degree independent of which country we study, although the magnitudes of the policy effects might differ across countries. Monetary policy differs across countries more through the targets set by different central banks than through the transmission mechanism.
How Well Can the Fed Meet Its Target?
On February 2, 2005, the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) decided to increase the target federal funds rate to 2.5 percent. The word target is critical here. If you listen to television news, you might get the impression that the Fed sets interest rates. It does not. It influences them, with greater or lesser success at different times.
***Figure 10.3 "Target and Actual Federal Funds Rate, 1971–2005" shows the monthly target and actual federal funds rate between 1971 and 2008. From this picture, it is evident that the target and actual federal funds rates move together. We can conclude that the first stage of the monetary transmission mechanism is reliable. The Fed can influence the federal funds rate. So far so good—at least for this period of time. As we shall see later, when we consider more recent events, the Fed was much less successful in targeting the federal funds rate during the periods of financial distress in 2007 and 2008.
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