This paper presents theory and evidence on the asymmetric effects of monetary policy on job creation and job destruction. First, it solves a dynamic matching model and it shows how interest rate changes result in an asymmetric response of job creation and destruction. Second, it looks at how changes in the federal fund rate affect gross job flows in the U.S. manufacturing industry, and it finds evidence of asymmetry. Tight policy increases job destruction and reduces net employment changes. Conversely, easy policy appears ineffective in stimulating job creation.

This paper offers evidence of the asymmetric effect of monetary policy on economic activity. First, asymmetric adjustment is captured in three macroeconomic relationships for investment, the consumer price deflator, inventories and house prices. These relationships are then embedded in a small macroeconometric model of the UK economy. Simulations on this model allow us to trace through the interactions of these asymmetries so that a monetary shock, measured by a change in interest rates, affects output and inflation in the short run in ways dependent both upon the sign of the shock and the initial state of the economy. A monetary easing has significantly larger effects on inflation when the economy is close to capacity compared with when it is in recession. These effects are captured by intrinsic asymmetries in the model, due to the use of the logarithm of interest rates and the logarithm of unemployment in the wage equation, as well as the asymmetries coming from the non-linearities which we have introduced explicitly.

Recent empirical studies examining the asymmetric effects of monetary shocks on economic activity do not systematically control for the non-monetary sources of fluctuations as well as the endogenous component of monetary policy. The evidence of asymmetry could simply reflect the failure to control for these omitted factors. In this paper, we reconsider the asymmetric effects of monetary shocks in the context of a small open economy using information from the yield curve to measure the stance of domestic monetary policy, while allowing both real and monetary foreign shocks to have asymmetric effects on output. Our principal finding is that while controlling for foreign factors dampens the asymmetry in the effects of exogenous domestic monetary shocks, there is nonetheless strong evidence of asymmetry when the effects of the exogenous and systematic components of the yield spread are considered jointly. We find no evidence of asymmetry in the effects of real factors.

This paper examines the evidence on asymmetries in the effects of activity on inflation. Data for the G-7 countries are found to strongly support the view that the inflation-activity relationship is nonlinear, with high levels of activity raising inflation by more than low levels decrease it. In the face of such asymmetries, the average level of output in an economy subject to demand shocks will be below the level of output at which there is no tendency for inflation to rise or fall, contrary to the implications of linear models. One implication of these results is that policymakers can raise the average level of output over time by responding promptly to demand shocks, thus reducing the variance of output around trend.