E47 - Money and Interest Rates: Forecasting and Simulation: Models and ApplicationsNávrat zpět

Exchange rate expectations are a crucial element in the main monetary models. Therefore, this paper analyses the mechanism behind their formation. To achieve this, we analyse traditional expectation models using data from the Survey of Professional Forecasters (SPF) for the CZK/EUR currency pair. The data used cover one-year expectations in the period from January 2001 to December 2022, which are provided monthly by the Czech National Bank (CNB). The paper demonstrates the poor performance of the perfect expectation model. Furthermore, it demonstrates that traditional models, such as static, extrapolative, regressive and adaptive expectations, exhibit some explanatory power but lack robustness. The only traditional model that exhibits robustness is the model based on the UIP puzzle, which also outperforms all other traditional models when evaluated using error metrics. Based on these observations, the paper introduces a non-traditional model in which agents simply shift the current spot value by a constant into the future. This model displays robustness and outperforms the others.

The aim of our paper is to formulate and empirically verify the simple backward looking econometric model of the monetary rule, which would be able to describe the development of CNB repo rate, namely only on the basis of statistically measured and in the given time available information. We focus on the period after 1998, when the CNB's inflation targeting policy is implemented and the repo rate (14 days) plays the role of the monetary policy rate. In the paper we discuss some methodological problems associated with the "ex post" empirical verification of the central bank monetary rule. We construct an empirical model of the monetary rule, justify the choice and the inclusion of explanatory variables, we analyze the statistical properties of time series and verify the alternative forms of econometric models. Our analysis showed that the development of CNB repo rate in the reporting period can be explained by the past and present evolution of three explanatory variables: the yearly inflation rate, the exchange rate and the ECB repo rate. The annualized inflation rate proved to be statistically insignificant in the model. We find interesting that the statistical quality of the estimated model was further increased after a six-month delay of the yearly inflation rate. The obtained results indicate that in determining the CNB repo rate the expected future level of the yearly inflation rate does not play important role and the last yearly inflation rate is more important than its present level.

Our study contains application of Latent Semantic Indexing on financial crises prediction. Hypothesis to test was that equity markets are able to predict even sharp changes in monetary policy during a quarter ahead of such a change (which was searched during two quarters that followed). This hypothesis, tested on sample of 36 countries between years 1985 and 2007, has been confirmed according to interest rate and foreign exchange expert interpretation. The studied application of LSI even though it timed several crises on their exact start day is not suitable for financial crises prediction but can be recommended for specification and analysis of fragile countries which are or could be prone to a crisis.

The paper consists of four parts each of them devoted to a practical aspect of inflation targeting as conducted by the Czech National Bank. The first part outlines the reasons that led to the adoption of this monetary regime and summarises other advantages for effective and transparent decision-making. The second part addresses the issue of missing inflation targets. It is argued that simple confrontation of targets with actual behaviour of inflation may give a distorted view about the actual performance of monetary policy. The third part discusses a subtle methodological controversy about the difference between so-called escape clauses on the one hand and net inflation on the other. In the last section the author presents his critical view about the role of unconditional forecast in its capacity to indicate future interest rate decisions and to provide a realistic description of transmission mechanism in a small open economy.