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The paper shows that monetary policy shocks exert a substantial effect on the size and composition of capital flows and the trade balance for the United States, with a 100 basis point easing raising net capital inflows and lowering the trade balance by 1% of GDP, and explaining about 20-25% of their time variation. Monetary policy easing causes positive returns to both equities and bonds. Yet such a monetary policy easing shock also induces a shift in portfolio composition out of equities and into bonds, implying a negative conditional correlation between flows in equities and bonds. Moreover, such shocks induce a negative conditional correlation between equity flows and equity returns, but a positive conditional correlation between bond flows and bond returns. The findings thus provide evidence for the presence of a portfolio rebalancing motive behind investment decisions in equities, but the dominance of what is akin to a return chasing motive for bonds, conditional on monetary policy shocks. The results also shed light on the puzzle of the strongly time-varying equity-bond return correlations found in the literature.

A vast empirical literature has documented delayed and persistent effects of monetary policy shocks on output. We show that this finding results from the aggregation of output impulse responses that differ sharply depending on the timing of the shock. When the monetary policy shock takes place in the first two quarters of the year, the response of output is quick, sizable, and dies out at a relatively fast pace. In contrast, output responds very little when the shock takes place in the third or fourth quarter. We propose a potential explanation for the differential responses based on uneven staggering of wage contracts across quarters. Using a dynamic general equilibrium model, we show that a realistic amount of uneven staggering can generate differences in output responses quantitatively similar to those found in the data. (JEL E23, E24, E58, J41)

This paper compares the New Keynesian Phillips curve with the hybrid Phillips curve for its ability to reproduce observed in.ation and output dynamics. The analysis is based on impulse responses of a miniature general equilibrium model incorporating price and in.ation inertia as the only friction. Impulse responses to a monetary policy shock for di.erent intesities of inertia are compared with empirical impulse responses of the US economy estimated using a structural VAR. We .nd that the NKPC does a reasonably good job of reproducing the dynamic link between current output and future inflation. It fails however to reproduce the co-movement of current output with current and lagged in.ation and it generates too low degrees of inflation and output persistence. The assumption of inflation inertia improves a model?s performance of reproducing inflation persistence and the dynamic inflation-output link. A significant improvement requires high intensity of inflation inertia. The fit of observed output persistence can not be improved.