This paper compares impulse responses to monetary policy shocks in the euro area countries before the EMU and in the New Member States (NMS) from central-eastern Europe. We mitigate the small-sample problem, which is especially acute for the NMS, by using a Bayesian estimation that combines information across countries. The impulse responses in the NMS are broadly similar to those in the euro area countries. There is some evidence that in the NMS, which have had higher and more volatile inflation, the Phillips curve is steeper than in the euro area countries. This finding is consistent with economic theory.

In April 2025, global inflation rates and central bank interest rates showed significant variation across major economies. Most economies initiated interest rate cuts from mid-2024 due to declining inflationary pressures. The U.S., UK, and EU central banks followed a consistent pattern of regular rate reductions throughout late 2024. In early 2025, Russia maintained the highest interest rate at 21 percent, while Japan retained the lowest at 0.5 percent. Varied inflation rates across major economies The inflation landscape varies considerably among major economies. China had the lowest inflation rate at -0.1 percent in April 2025. In contrast, Russia maintained a high inflation rate of 10.2 percent. These figures align with broader trends observed in early 2025, where China had the lowest inflation rate among major developed and emerging economies, while Russia's rate remained the highest. Central bank responses and economic indicators Central banks globally implemented aggressive rate hikes throughout 2022-23 to combat inflation. The European Central Bank exemplified this trend, raising rates from 0 percent in January 2022 to 4.5 percent by September 2023. A coordinated shift among major central banks began in mid-2024, with the ECB, Bank of England, and Federal Reserve initiating rate cuts, with forecasts suggesting further cuts through 2025 and 2026.

Standard macroeconomic theory predicts rapid responses of asset prices to monetary policy shocks. Small-scale vector autoregressions (VARs), however, often find sluggish and insignificant impact effects. Using the same high-frequency instrument to identify monetary policy shocks, we show that a large-scale dynamic factor model finds overall stronger and quicker asset price reactions compared to a benchmark VAR, both on euro area and US data. Our results suggest that incorporating a sufficiently large information set is crucial to estimate monetary policy effects.

This database is built by reviewing the pandemic-related prudential policies from three different sources, namely: - the IMF database “Policy responses to Covid-19”- the World Bank “Covid-19 pandemic: A database of policy responses related to the financial sector”-the “Covid-19 financial response tracker” provided by the Yale Program on Financial StabilityThe focus is on the policies adopted by G20 countries in the period March-December 2020.The review resulted in the collection of 737 data points.Information is provided on the country, region, income level, date of the start and end of the policy (when available), description, and reference.This database is used for the review of pandemic-related financial policies in the paper "Addressing climate-related financial risks and enhancing financial resilience in a post-pandemic framework: A review of existing policies and future perspectives"

How should monetary policy respond to changes in financial conditions? We consider a simple model where firms are subject to shocks which may force them to default on their debt. Firms' assets and liabilities are nominal and predetermined. Monetary policy can therefore affect the real value of funds used to finance production. In this model, allowing for inflation volatility in response to aggregate shocks can be optimal; the optimal response to adverse financial shocks is to lower interest rates and to engineer some inflation; and the Taylor rule may implement allocations that have opposite cyclical properties to the optimal ones. (JEL G32, E31, E43, E44, E52)

We introduce a novel method for estimating a monetary policy rule using macroeconomic news. We estimate directly the policy rule agents use to form their expectations by linking news' effects on forecasts of both economic conditions and monetary policy. Evidence between 1994 and 2007 indicates that the market-perceived Federal Reserve policy rule changed: the output response vanished, and the inflation response path became more gradual but larger in long-run magnitude. These response coefficient estimates are robust to measurement and theoretical issues with both potential output and the inflation target. (JEL C51, E31, E43, E52, E58)

This paper investigates both the effects of domestic monetary policy and external shocks on fundamental macroeconomic variables in six fast growing emerging economies: Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa and Turkey—denoted hereafter as BRICS_T. The authors adopt a structural VAR model with a block exogeneity procedure to identify domestic monetary policy shocks and external shocks. Their research reveals that a contractionary monetary policy in most countries appreciates the domestic currency, increases interest rates, effectively controls inflation rates and reduces output. They do not find any evidence of the price, output, exchange rates and trade puzzles that are usually found in VAR studies. Their findings imply that the exchange rate is the main transmission mechanism in BRICS_T economies. The authors also find that that there are inverse J-curves in five of the six fast growing emerging economies and there are deviations from UIP (Uncovered Interest Parity) in response to a contractionary monetary policy in those countries. Moreover, world output shocks are not a dominant source of fluctuations in those economies.

ABSTRACT This paper aims to evaluate the performance of the monetary policy of inflation targeting regime in the Latin America countries from 2001 to 2014, with monthly data. For this purpose, a VEC model (vector error correction) is applied to running data to analyze the long-term function and the impulse response function. The results pointed out that the adoption of the target system has contributed to reduce the inflation rate and its volatility and the fluctuations in the rate of growth in activity level. The estimated parameters of the long-term speed of adjustment of the price index have indicated strong reaction by the monetary authorities to change inflation rate via short-term interest rate. These adjustments are also noted in the level of activity and the exchange rate for most countries, but with less level of speed. The impulse response function confirmed these results. Therefore, the monetary policy was effective to control inflation, especially in Peru, Colombia and Chile. In Brazil and Mexico, the effectiveness of monetary policy has only been observed more recently.

From January 2022 to July 2024, a global trend emerged as almost all advanced and emerging economies increased their central bank policy rates. This widespread tightening of monetary policy was in response to inflationary pressures and economic challenges. However, a shift occurred in the latter half of 2024, with most countries beginning to lower their rates, potentially signaling a new phase in the global economic cycle and monetary policy approach.

This paper explores optimal policy design in an estimated model of three small open economies: Australia, Canada and New Zealand. Within a class of generalized Taylor rules, we show that to stabilize a weighted objective of output consumer price inflation and nominal interest variation optimal policy does not respond to the nominal exchange. This is despite the presence of local currency pricing and due, in large part, to observed exchange rate disconnect in these economies. Optimal policies that account for the uncertainty of model estimates, as captured by the parameters' posterior distribution, similarly exhibit a lack of exchange rate response. In contrast to Brainard (1967), the presence of parameter uncertainty can lead to more or less aggressive policy responses, depending on the model at hand.

The enduring discourse regarding the effectiveness of interest rate policy in mitigating inflation within developing economies is characterized by the interplay of structural and supply-side determinants. Moreover, extant academic literature fails to resolve the direction of causality between inflation and interest rates. Nevertheless, the prevalent adoption of interest rate-based monetary policies in numerous developing economies raises a fundamental inquiry: What motivates central banks in these nations to consistently espouse this strategy? To address this inquiry, our study leverages wavelet transformation to dissect interest rate and inflation data across a spectrum of frequency scales. This innovative methodology paves the way for a meticulous exploration of the intricate causal interplay between these pivotal macroeconomic variables for twenty-two developing economies using monthly data from 1992 to 2022. Traditional literature on causality tends to focus on short- and long-run timescales, yet our study posits that numerous uncharted time and frequency scales exist between these extremes. These intermediate scales may wield substantial influence over the causal relationship and its direction. Our research thus extends the boundaries of existing causality literature and presents fresh insights into the complexities of monetary policy in developing economies. Traditional wisdom suggests that central banks should raise interest rates to combat inflation. However, our study uncovers a contrasting reality in developing economies. It demonstrates a positive causal link between the policy rate and inflation, where an increase in the central bank’s interest rates leads to an upsurge in price levels. Paradoxically, in response to escalating prices, the central bank continues to heighten the policy rate, thereby perpetuating this cyclical pattern. Given this observed positive causal relationship in developing economies, central banks must explore structural and supply-side factors to break this cycle and regain control over inflation.

China’s crude oil import has increased sharply since 2002. Its expenditure on oil import now accounts for around 10% of its total commodity import. Thus, there is potential imported inflation or deflation due to oil price fluctuations and China’s central bank may respond to it. We quantitatively analyze the impact of oil prices on China’s benchmark interest rate and monetary supply by a 6-variable structural vector auto-regression model. We draw that: 1) In response to an increase of oil price, China’s central bank generally upgrades interest rate. If oil price rises by 10 US dollars, the 6-month lending base rate will increase by around 0.13 percentage point in 3 months. 2) The effects of price shocks deepen after the oil pricing reform, and specifically, it can explain 19.8% of the variations in monetary policies in one year after October 2008, compared with the 0.83% before October 2001.

This paper provides aggregate-level evidence from a set of 31 advanced and emerging economies that supports the existence of supply-side effects for monetary policy, i.e., the cost channel. Our methodology employs sign restrictions and historical decompositions to first separate inflation and loan rates into their demand-driven and supply-driven components. These supply-driven components (here called the supply inflation and supply loan rate, respectively) are then used to test for the cost channel. Analytically, a monetary policy tightening, by reducing banks’ loan supply, increases the supply loan rate and raises the borrowing costs faced by firms. Such an adjustment in loan rates also produces a contraction in the aggregate supply that ultimately raises supply inflation. Our estimates show that a monetary tightening increases supply inflation in all countries, but more significantly in emerging economies. Larger supply inflation occurs due to the greater responses of supply loan rates to policy rates and of supply inflation to supply loan rates. According to our stylized New Keynesian model, both reactions are potentially related to the higher pass-through of banks’ and firms’ costs to rates and prices, respectively. Finally, we find out that, on average, the size of the cost channel in emerging economies outweighs the downward inflationary pressures expected from the aggregate demand contraction. Our interpretation is that rising inflation expectations are responsible for this result.

This data package includes the underlying data to replicate the charts, tables, and calculations presented in Fiscal policy and the pandemic-era surge in US inflation: Lessons for the future, PIIE Working Paper 24-22.

If you use the data, please cite as:

Dynan, Karen, and Douglas Elmendorf. 2024. Fiscal policy and the pandemic-era surge in US inflation: Lessons for the future. PIIE Working Paper 24-22. Washington: Peterson Institute for International Economics.

The Federal Reserve's balance sheet has undergone significant changes since 2007, reflecting its response to major economic crises. From a modest *** trillion U.S. dollars at the end of 2007, it ballooned to approximately **** trillion U.S. dollars by May 2025. This dramatic expansion, particularly during the 2008 financial crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic - both of which resulted in negative annual GDP growth in the U.S. - showcases the Fed's crucial role in stabilizing the economy through expansionary monetary policies. Impact on inflation and interest rates The Fed's expansionary measures, while aimed at stimulating economic growth, have had notable effects on inflation and interest rates. Following the quantitative easing in 2020, inflation in the United States reached * percent in 2022, the highest since 1991. However, by *************, inflation had declined to *** percent. Concurrently, the Federal Reserve implemented a series of interest rate hikes, with the rate peaking at **** percent in ***********, before the first rate cut since ************** occurred in **************. Financial implications for the Federal Reserve The expansion of the Fed's balance sheet and subsequent interest rate hikes have had significant financial implications. In 2023, the Fed reported a negative net income of ***** billion U.S. dollars, a stark contrast to the ***** billion U.S. dollars profit in 2022. This unprecedented shift was primarily due to rapidly rising interest rates, which caused the Fed's interest expenses to soar to over *** billion U.S. dollars in 2023. Despite this, the Fed's net interest income on securities acquired through open market operations reached a record high of ****** billion U.S. dollars in the same year.

Brazil's inflation rate and central bank interest rate have experienced significant fluctuations from 2018 to 2025, reflecting broader global economic trends. The country's inflation peaked at 12.13 percent in April 2020, followed by a gradual decline and subsequent rise, while the central bank adjusted its Selic rate in response to these economic dynamics. This pattern of volatility and monetary policy adjustments mirrors similar experiences in other major economies during the same period. Global context of inflation and interest rates Brazil's economic indicators align with the global trend of rising inflation and subsequent central bank responses observed in many countries. Like Brazil, other major economies such as the United States, United Kingdom, and European Union implemented aggressive rate hikes throughout 2022-2023 to combat inflationary pressures. However, a coordinated shift began in mid-2024, with many central banks initiating rate cuts. This global trend is reflected in Brazil's monetary policy decisions, as the country began reducing its Selic rate in August 2023 after maintaining it at 13.75 percent for several months. Comparison with other economies While Brazil's inflation rate reached 5.53 percent in April 2025, other major economies exhibited varying levels of inflationary pressure. For instance, China reported a deflationary rate of -0.1 percent, while Russia maintained a high inflation rate of 10.2 percent during the same period. The United Kingdom, which experienced similar volatility in its inflation rate, saw it peak at 9.6 percent in October 2022 before moderating to 2.6 percent by September 2024. These comparisons highlight the diverse economic conditions and policy responses across different countries, with Brazil's experience falling somewhere in the middle of this spectrum.

ABSTRACT The paper discusses the determination of inflation in Brazil, especially after the great recession of 2015-2016, to assess the adequacy of manipulating interest rates to control the rise in prices due to permanent cost pressure. The burden of using the interest rate to fight cost inflation is to create a highly conventional level of the real interest rate, which benefits the rentier class in a financialized economy. In the light of the post-Keynesian macroeconomics, a high-interest rate convention keeps the economy with a low growth rate and a low investment rate, which in the case of the Brazilian economy has resulted in a regression in the productive matrix and productivity stagnation, and both contribute to perpetuating cost pressures on prices. The empirical analysis corroborates the discussion about recent inflation having its origin in cost pressures over which the interest rate impact for its control is limited. We complement the empirical analysis by testing the response to the SELIC interest rate of the variables used to explain the fluctuation of market prices and administered prices: commodity price index, exchange rate and activity level. As expected, the impact of an increase in the interest rate appreciates the exchange rate, favouring inflation control and reducing the level of activity but has no impact on the commodity price index.

Abstract (en): I develop and estimate a monetary business cycle model with nominal loans and collateral constraints tied to housing values. Demand shocks move housing and nominal prices in the same direction, and are amplified and propagated over time. The financial accelerator is not uniform: nominal debt dampens supply shocks, stabilizing the economy under interest rate control. Structural estimation supports two key model features: collateral effects dramatically improve the response of aggregate demand to housing price shocks; and nominal debt improves the sluggish response of output to inflation surprises. Finally, policy evaluation considers the role of house prices and debt indexation in affecting monetary policy trade-offs.

Inflation can cause costly misallocations of resources as consumers seek to protect the purchasing power of their nominal assets. This research deals with the nature of these distortions, known as "shoe-leather costs," in a model where the demand for money is motivated by a shopping-time constraint. While the estimates of the shoe-leather costs of long-run inflation (implied by this model) are generally consistent with previous studies, the research shows that the transition between inflation rates can involve dynamics that alter the nature of these welfare effects. Specifically, the benefits of a disinflation policy are mitigated by the gradual adjustment of the economy in response to a lower inflation rate. This transition can be particularly protracted when there is uncertainty about the credibility of the disinflation policy.

In a basic New Keynesian DSGE model with involuntary unemployment, we study the role of labor markets in the transmission of persistent monetary policy shocks that increase households' inflation expectations. The model predicts that, in contrast to the standard nominal interest rate shocks, labor market conditions can affect the outcomes of persistent monetary policy shocks suggesting a trade-off between inflation and output growth: restricted labor market access leads to higher inflation response with smaller effects on output. Using a VAR analysis, we further provide empirical evidence consistent with the predictions of our theoretical model.