|
Kenneth Kuttner
NBER Working Paper No. 12454
Issued in August 2006
NBER Program(s): ME
---- Abstract -----
This paper addresses the possible role of bond prices as operating or intermediate targets for monetary policy. The paper begins with a brief review of the mechanisms through which a central bank could, in theory, influence long-term interest rates, and continues with a brief narrative overview of debt management policies in the U.S., tracing their effects on the maturity distribution of outstanding publicly-held Treasury debt and the composition of the assets held by the Federal Reserve System. The empirical section presents new econometric evidence on the effects of these policies on expected excess holding returns (“term premia”), demonstrating that changes in the Fed’s holdings of long-term securities have had statistically significant and economically meaningful effects on the term premia associated with Treasury securities with maturities in the two- to five-year range.
Would you like an annual subscription to NBER Working Papers? Click
here for more information.
You may purchase this paper on-line in .pdf format
from SSRN.com ($5) for electronic delivery.
Information for subscribers and others expecting no-cost downloads
Machine-readable bibliographic record -
MARC,
RIS,
BibTeX
| 
