Transition from the Taylor rule to the zero lower bound

This paper examines the Taylor rule in the context of United States monetary policy since 1965, particularly with respect to the zero-lower-bound era of the federal funds rate from 2009 to 2016. A nonlinear Taylor rule is developed which features smooth transitions in the first two moments of the federal funds rate. This flexible specification is found to usefully capture observed nonlinearity, while accounting for the well-documented structural changes in monetary policy formation at the Federal Reserve in the last 50 years, and especially in the recent zero-lower-bound era.

Option Pricing, Zero Lower Bound, and COVID-19

This paper provides a quantitative assessment of equity options priced at the Zero Lower Bound, i.e., when interest rates are set essentially to zero. We obtain closed form formulas for American options when the Zero Lower Bound policy holds. We perform numerical implementation of American put options written on the stock Federal National Mortgage Association (FNMA) and of related bounds for the optimal exercise. The results show similarities with the corresponding European options priced at the Zero Lower Bound during the COVID-19 crisis.