Open mouth operations

This paper explains how central bank statements, rather than open market operations, can be used to implement monetary policy. In the extreme, policy instruments can be held constant. and yet interest rates will evolve along the path desired by the central bank. We show how the recent implementation of monetary policy in New Zealand works in this way. Using announcement data from New Zealand, we find that open mouth operations lead to large changes in interest rates across all maturities, and these changes cannot be explained by open market operations. Implications are drawn for monetary policy in other jurisdictions. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. JEL classification: E42; E52; E58.