Title

Political Regime Change and the Real Interest Rate

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

8-2000

Publication Source

Journal of Money, Credit and Banking

Abstract

The effect of policy regime changes on real interest rates has important implications for financial and economic theory. However, there is little current evidence that such changes have any impact on the level of real interest rates. In this paper, we estimate both the number and location of structural breaks in the three-month U.S. real interest rate using a global optimization technique developed by Bai and Perron (1998). We compare the timing of large political changes to the dating of these structural breaks. We find that changes in party control of either a branch of Congress or the presidency are largely consistent with the timing of real rate shifts, while changes in the Federal Reserve chair are generally inconsistent with real rate regime shifts.

Inclusive pages

Journal of Money, Credit and Banking

ISBN/ISSN

320-334

Comments

Permission documentation is on file.

Publisher

Ohio State University Press

Volume

32

Peer Reviewed

yes

Issue

3

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