Publications

This paper examines the impact of the euro adoption on the economy of Lithuania during its first five years (2015-2019) as a member of the euro area. First, it assesses the impact of the euro adoption in Lithuania on interest rates and real exports, after which it investigates the impact on Lithuanian macroeconomic indicators with a LTDSGE model, using impulse response functions obtained in 2013 in research conducted by the Bank of Lithuania. The paper further estimates the impact of the euro adoption on Lithuanian macroeconomic indicators using the synthetic control method (SCM). The results of this paper confirm the main conclusions of the aforementioned 2013 study, namely, that the long-term benefits of the euro adoption were much higher than the costs, which were mainly short-term or could even be considered as valuable investments. 

JEL Codes: E17, E52, F33, F45

The views expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent those of the Bank of Lithuania.

Available only in Lithuanian

In this paper, we analyze the relationship between various risk factors and euro area government bond yield spreads, focusing particularly on the monetary policy stance. Our results show that credit and common risk factors are consistently priced in government bond yield spreads, while liquidity differentials are relevant especially during periods of stressed market conditions. We demonstrate that the liquidity component has been more prominent during periods of declining interest rates and increasing reserves, while it has diminished on announcement days of monetary policy decisions related to PSPP. Overall, the liquidity component has been statistically insignificant since the announcement of accommodative non-standard monetary policy measures.

JEL Codes: C23, E62, H50.

The views expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent those of the Bank of Lithuania.

This paper applies Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA), a machine learning algorithm, to analyze the transcripts of the U.S. Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) covering the period 2003 – 2012, including 45,346 passages. The goal is to detect the evolution of the different topics discussed by the members of the FOMC. The results of this exercise show that discussions on economic modelling were dominant during the Global Financial Crisis (GFC), with an increase in discussion of the banking system in the years following the GFC. Discussions on communication gained relevance toward the end of the sample as the Federal Reserve adopted a more transparent approach. The paper suggests that LDA analysis could be further exploited by researchers at central banks and institutions to identify topic priorities in relevant documents such as FOMC transcripts.

JEL Codes: E52, E58, D78.

The views expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent those of the Bank of Lithuania.

The co-movement of US sovereign rates suggests a long-run common stochastic trend. Traditional cointegrated systems need to assume that interest rates are unit roots and thus imply non-stationary and non-mean-reverting dynamics. Based on recent econometric developments, we postulate and estimate a fractional cointegrated model (FCVAR) which allows for a mean-reverting stochastic trend. Our results point to the presence of such mean-reverting fractional cointegration among sovereign rates. The implied term premium is less volatile than the classic I(0) stationary and I(1) unit root models. Our analysis highlights the role of real factors (but not inflation) in shaping term premium dynamics. We further identify the dynamic effects of quantitative easing policies on our identified term premium. In contrast to the stationary-implied term premium, we find a significant term premium decline following these large-scale asset purchase programs.

JEL Codes: C2, C3, E4, G1.

The views expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent those of the Bank of Lithuania.