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Monday, September 6, 2010

Taylor's Rule for calculating prime interest rate



Taylor's Rule

Estimating where interest rates should be.

According to Taylor's Rule, the Prime Interest Rates should currently be :

(a)   "neutral" Real Prime Rate                                                                          5.5%
        (average September 1989 - July 1995; 1999 - 2007)

(b)    Expected CPI inflation: 3Q 2011                                                               5.0%


(c)      0.5 x (Current CPI - CPI  "target")                                                            -0.4%
         = 0.5 x (3.7% - 4.5%)

(d)     0.5 x (Output "Gap")
        = 0.5 x (-2.2%)                                                                                            -1.1%

Target Prime Interest Rate:                                                                                 9.0%
Current Prime Interest Rate:  01 September 2010                                               10.0%

Comment:   The current outlook for inflation and the slow recovery in the economy could still mean another 0.5% interest rate cut this month, prime falling to 9.5%, according to a simple Taylor rule. 

By Cees Bruggemans, Chief Economist FNB

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