Academic Integrity: tutoring, explanations, and feedback — we don’t complete graded work or submit on a student’s behalf.

Use the Taylor rule to: Calculate the target for the federal funds rate for Octo

ID: 2657395 • Letter: U

Question

Use the Taylor rule to:

Calculate the target for the federal funds rate for October 2012, using the following information: equilibrium real federal funds rate of 2%, target inflation rate of 2%, current inflation rate of 1.2%, and a (negative) output gap of 5.9%. In your calculations, the inflation gap is negative if the current inflation rate is below the target inflation rate.

How does the targeted federal funds rate calculated using the Taylor rule compare to the actual federal funds rate of 0% to 0.25% at the time? Briefly explain.

Explanation / Answer

Taylor rule of interest rate calculation developed by John Taylor , in order to find the Federal fund rate adjusted with inflation rate with formula below as:

Federal fund rate = equillibrium real fed rate + inflation rate + 1/2 * inflation gap + 1/2 * Output gap

As per given data in questions,

Federal funds rate = 2% + 2% + 1/2*(1.2% – 2%)+ 1/2*(-5.9%) = 0.65%.

The calculated Taylor rule federal funds rate target exceeds the actual target range of 0.00 to 0.25%.