Are interest rate changes comoving with financial cycle?

Abstract

AbstractWe explore to what extent official interest rate changes can potentially in a procyclical manner impact different financial cycle indicators (credit/GDP, debt service ratio, house prices and stock market indices). We test this on data covering 1995−2016 in 21 countries and the euro area using the Concordance index and Monetary policy procyclicality ratio. Results show that this was not a widespread phenomenon, but there was significant heterogenenity across countries. The procyclicality of interest rate changes was usually higher when financial cycle gaps were increasing and lower when they were decreasing. On average, central banks in several larger economies were running potentially less procyclical monetary policy than those in the smaller ones. The resulting propensity of conflicts between achieving price and financial stability by central banks was low, as only in 10% of the cases the objectives were conflicting (usually when inflation was below the target and the credit cycle was in an expansion phase).