Estimating the Indian natural interest rate and evaluating policy

Abstract

We estimate the unobserved time-varying natural interest rate (NIR) and potential output for the Indian economy using the Kalman Filter. Estimation is a special challenge in an emerging market because of limited length of data series and ongoing structural change. A key result in the literature is the NIR is imprecisely estimated. Structural aspects of the economy used in our estimation turn out, however, to improve the precision of the NIR estimates, although potential output continues to be imprecisely estimated. Turning points are well captured and estimates obtained for the output gap elasticity of aggregate supply and the interest elasticity of aggregate demand.The estimated NIR is used as an indicator of the monetary policy stance, which is found to be broadly contractionary and procyclical for the period under study.