| This thesis estimates the effects of monetary policy shocks by employing vector auto regressions (VAR). I argue that to the extent the central bank and the private sector have information not reflected in the VAR, the measurement of policy innovations is contaminated. These incorrectly estimated policy shocks then generate misleading results about the effects of monetary policy. This thesis first attempts to figure out the variables indeed observed by central banks to make monetary policy decisions and then formulates the monetary policy reaction function by using those variables. Having identified more realistic monetary policy functions in VAR models, I conclude that most of the previous puzzling results about the effect of monetary policy shocks might be due to incorrectly identifying the monetary policy reaction function. |
