Hidden Effect of Monetary Surprises on US Unemployment

This paper studies the impact on the change in fed funds rate held by U.S FOMC. In analyzing the interest rate policy’s impact on the output indicator and unemployment, I studied stylized facts from both long-run and short-run analyses. The significant impact on the monetary policy in changing output growth and the unemployment rate is found in the crouching vector error correction model, which considers the asymmetric shape of long-run equilibrium. In the short-run analysis, I also found significant evidence that the unexpected change in the fed funds rate has the significant impact on unemployment. To measure the pure surprising factor of the change in fed funds rate, I extract the surprising factor after eliminating the fed funds futures rate from the total change in the fed funds rate. The interest rate policy’s significance is shown in the crouching ordinary least squares model, consisting of decomposed surprises, percentage change in price levels, and unemployment in two directions, increase and decrease. The short-run results show that when a monetary authority surprises a market by increasing the fed funds rate higher than expected (a contractional policy), the unemployment rate increases.