optimal monetary policy in an economy with inflation persistence abstract this paper studies optimal monetary policy in a model where inflation is persistent two types of price setters are assumed to exist one acts rationally given calvo type constraints on price setting the other type sets prices according to a rule of thumb this results in a phillips curve with both a forward looking term and a backward looking term the phillips curve nests a standard purely forward looking phillips curve as well as a standard purely backward looking phillips curve as special cases a cost push supply shock is derived from microfoundations by adding a time varying income tax and by making the elasticity of substitution between goods stochastic a central bank loss function for this model is derived from a second order taylor approximation of the household s welfare function optimal monetary policy for different relative values of the forward and backward looking terms is then analyzed for both the commitment case and the case of discretion

optimal interest rate rules asset prices and credit frictions we study optimal taylor type interest rate rules in an economy with credit market imperfections our analysis builds on the agency cost framework of carlstrom and fuerst 1997 agency costs net worth and business fluctuations a computable general equilibrium analysis american economic review 87 893 910 which we extend in two directions first we embed monopolistic competition and sticky prices second we modify the stochastic structure of the model in order to generate a countercyclical premium on external finance this is achieved by linking the mean distribution of investment opportunities faced by entrepreneurs to aggregate total factor productivity we model monetary policy in terms of simple welfare maximizing interest rate rules we find that monetary policy should respond to increases in asset prices by lowering interest rates however when monetary policy responds strongly to inflation the marginal welfare gain of responding to asset prices vanishes within the class of linear interest rate rules that we analyze a strong anti inflationary stance always attains the highest level of welfare

congestion management and transmission rights in centralized electric markets a new congestion management system is proposed applied under nodal and zonal dispatches with implementation of fixed transmission rights ftr and flowgate rights fgr respectively the ftr model proves to be especially suitable for congestion management in deregulated centralized market structures with nodal dispatch while the fgr is suitable for decentralized markets the main contribution of this work is a nontraditional valuation of fgr under a centralized market such as those present in latin america that builds a link between both transmission rights under the same market structure to accomplish that a computational model is developed implementing marginal theory where congestion components are introduced in the pricing model an application to the chilean central interconnected system indicates that fgr presents advantages over ftr regarding signals on grid use but its application results in complications that make its implementation unattractive

optimal bidding strategies and modeling of imperfect information among competitive generators the emerging electricity market behaves more like an oligopoly than a perfectly competitive market due to special features such as a limited number of producers large investment size barrier to entry transmission constraints and transmission losses which discourage purchase from distant suppliers this makes it practicable for only a few independent power suppliers to service a given geographic region and in this imperfect market each power supplier can increase its own profit through strategic bidding the profit of each supplier is influenced to varying extents by differences in the degree of imperfection of knowledge of rival suppliers a new framework to build bidding strategies for power suppliers in an electricity market is presented in this paper it is assumed that each supplier bids a linear supply function and that the system is dispatched to minimize customer payments each supplier chooses the coefficients in the linear supply function to maximize benefits subject to expectations about how rival suppliers will bid a stochastic optimization formulation is developed and two methods proposed for describing and solving this problem a numerical example serves to illustrate the essential features of the approach and the results are used to investigate the potential market power

banking and interest rates in monetary policy analysis a quantitative exploration abstract the paper reconsiders the role of money and banking in monetary policy analysis by including a banking sector and money in an optimizing model otherwise of a standard type the model is implemented quantitatively with a calibration based on us data it is reasonably successful in providing an endogenous explanation for substantial steady state differentials between the interbank policy rate and i the collateralized loan rate ii the uncollateralized loan rate iii the t bill rate iv the net marginal product of capital and v a pure intertemporal rate we find a differential of over 3 p a between iii and iv thereby contributing to resolution of the equity premium puzzle dynamic impulse response functions imply pro or counter cyclical movements in an external finance premium that can be of quantitative significance in addition they suggest that a central bank that fails to recognize the distinction between interbank and other short rates could miss its appropriate settings by as much as 4 p a also shocks to banking productivity or collateral effectiveness call for large responses in the policy rate

contingent transmission rights in the standard market design we define transmission rights that are compatible with the federal energy regulatory commission s proposed standard market design smd and that provide flexibility in the points of receipt or delivery of energy contracts the contingent transmission rights introduced here provide a viable flexible method for defining smd compatible rights for transmission customers having current pre smd transmission rights that cover multiple points these contingent rights can be bought and sold in the transmission rights auctions under smd

macroeconomic implications of deep habits in banking recent empirical evidence shows that price cost margins in the market for bank credit are countercyclical in the u s economy and that this cyclical behavior can be explained in part from the fact that switching banks is costly for customers i e from a borrower hold up effect our goal in this paper is to study the financial accelerator role of these countercyclical margins as a propagation mechanism of macroeconomic shocks to do so we apply the deep habits framework in ravn schmitt grohe and uribe 2006 to financial markets to model this hold up effect within a monopolistically competitive banking industry we are able to reproduce the pattern of price cost margins observed in the data and to show that the real effects of aggregate total factor productivity shocks are larger the stronger the friction implied by borrower hold up also output investment and employment all become more volatile than in a standard model with constant margins in credit markets an empirical contribution of our work is to provide structural estimates of the deep habits parameters for financial markets

money is an experience good competition and trust in the private provision of money the interplay between competition and trust as efficiency enhancing mechanisms in the private provision of money is studied with commitment trust is automatically achieved and competition ensures efficiency without commitment competition plays no role trust does play a role but requires a bound on efficiency stationary inflation must be non negative and therefore the friedman rule cannot be achieved the quality of money can be observed only after its purchasing capacity is realized in this sense money is an experience good

social diffusion of energy related practices and representations patterns and policies in portugal and belgium the authors thank the fundacao para a ciencia e tecnologia portugal for the support under the grant mit pt ses sues 0037 2008 the interviews in wallonia were realised during an international project funded in 2008 2011 by intelligent energy europe ideal epbd improving dwellings by enhancing actions on labelling for the energy per formance in buildings directive grant iee 07 600 si2 499426 whereas the present analysis in terms of social diffusion was realised after the completion of that project

community perspectives of wind energy in australia the application of a justice and community fairness framework to increase social acceptance decisions concerning the siting of infrastructure developments or the use of natural resources have the potential to damage a community s social well being if the outcomes are perceived to be unfair justice is accepted as central to the well functioning of society with fairness being an expectation in day to day interactions outcomes that are perceived to be unfair can result in protests damaged relationships and divided communities particularly when decisions are made which benefit some sections of the community at the perceived expense of others through empirical research using a wind farm pilot study community perceptions of a community consultation process are explored using procedural justice principles to evaluate fairness findings from the pilot study indicate that perceptions of fairness do influence how people perceive the legitimacy of the outcome and that a fairer process will increase acceptance of the outcome a key research finding was that different sections of a community are likely to be influenced by different aspects of justice namely by outcome fairness outcome favourability and process fairness based on this finding a community fairness framework was developed which has potential application in community consultation to increase social acceptance of the outcome

the role of liquid government bonds in the great transformation of american monetary policy abstract a fundamental shift in monetary policy occurred around 1980 the fed went from a passive policy to an active policy we study a model in which government bonds provide transactions services we present two calibrations of our model using pre and post 1980 data we show that estimates of pre and post 1980 policy rules all lie within our determinacy regions but the pre 1980 policy was a very bad monetary policy even if it avoided sunspot equilibria model simulations suggest that household welfare would have increased by 3 3 percent of permanent consumption in this period under an active policy

how important is precommitment for monetary policy we quantify the welfare differential between precommitment and discretionary monetary policy in three estimated models of the u s economy by calculating the permanent deviation of inflation from target that in welfare terms is equivalent to moving from discretion to precommitment using a range of reasonable central bank preference parameters this inflation equivalent ranges from 0 05 to 3 6 percentage points with a mid point of either 0 15 or 1 1 5 percentage points depending on the model in addition to the degree of forward looking behavior we show that the existence of transmission lags and or information lags is crucial for determining the welfare gain from precommitment

what s different about banks abstract negotiable certificates of deposit cd s trade in the capital market in competition with other securities like commercial paper and bankers acceptances if cd s must pay lenders competitive monetary interest the reserve tax on cd s is borne by bank borrowers viability of the tax means there must be something special about bank loans that makes some borrowers willing to pay higher interest rates than those on other securities of equivalent risk moreover there must be something special about banks that prevents other intermediaries from competing to assure that it never pays to finance loans with cd s

exploring participatory energy budgeting as a policy instrument to foster energy justice abstract the ethical and sustainable production and consumption of energy are becoming increasingly important with the ongoing transformation and decentralization of the energy system for other kinds of goods and commodities ethical consumption have direct implications for and the participation of informed citizens due to its intangibility energy lacks the same levels of reflection and intervention by citizens and those aspects are yet to be fully explored in practice this paper contributes to the understanding of how energy justice might be approached we reflect on an empirical experience of participatory energy budgeting a process aimed at determining how to redistribute a share of energy linked to collective virtuous consumption behaviors we analyze through a qualitative thematic analysis how participants make sense of the participatory energy budgeting process and the emerged dynamics within the local communities and how this process can strive to reconfigure the relationship among civil society the energy sector and politics in order to remediate injustices we highlight how the construction in practice of energy justice in a local community might be closely linked to issues such as the form of energy governance that allows for the participation of citizens and the accountability of the process policies and technological limitations

solution and estimation of re macromodels with optimal policy macro models of monetary policy typically involve forward looking behavior except in rare circumstances we have to apply some numerical method to find the optimal policy and the rational expectations equilibrium this paper summarizes a few useful methods and shows how they can be combined with a kalman filter to estimate the deep model parameters with maximum likelihood simulations of a macro model with staggered price setting interest rate elastic output and optimal monetary policy illustrate the properties of this estimation approach

risk constrained ftr bidding strategy in transmission markets in electricity markets financial transmission right is an important instrument for hedging congestion charges there are two types of financial transmission rights point to point right ftr and flow based right fgr this paper proposes a risk constrained ftr bidding strategy in transmission auction markets based on the forecasted lmp differences between sink and source points of certain ftrs bidders try to maximize their expected payoffs by taking into account the associated risks supposing the forecasted distribution of lmp differences and bidders risk preferences are known to respective bidders the ftr bidding problem is modeled as a bilevel optimization with the upper subproblem representing bidders and the lower subproblem representing the solution to the iso s ftr market clearing problem for maximizing the revenues collected from the ftr auction the bilevel optimization problem is solved by developing the sensitivity of a bidder s expected utility with respect to its bidding strategy a three bus system with four bidders is considered for illustrating the proposed method the numerical results discuss the distinction between ftr obligation and ftr option bidding strategies the results further demonstrate the impact of contingency constraints forecasted lmp differences and bidders preferred risk levels on ftr bidding strategies

screening and mitigation of exacerbated market power due to financial transmission rights a methodology is proposed for taking into account potential exacerbation of market power due to financial transmission rights ftr allocations hedging position ratios hprs are computed for ftr bids these ratios quantify the relationship between the positions of an ftr bidder in the energy market and in the transmission rights allocation based on the transmission rights bids these ratios are used to identify the potential gambling positions from the transmission rights bidders and therefore used to prioritize critical positions in the auction the transmission right auction is modeled as a quadratic programming problem with a direct current dc approximation the methodology is illustrated by a three node network and then extended to larger networks

holdups and overinvestment in capital markets abstract this paper considers a decentralized capital market characterized by trading frictions in which firms and suppliers need to make investment decisions before meeting with each other and bargaining over the price of capital the resulting holdup problem provides firms with a strategic incentive to overaccumulate capital so as to reduce their marginal productivity and thus the bargained price in equilibrium this strategic incentive can outweigh the usual distortionary effects of holdup problems that on their own would lead to underinvestment thus resulting in the economy to overinvest in a setting with both capital and labor the holdup problem in capital markets interacts with holdup problems in labor markets this presents firms with a trade off that has non trivial equilibrium effects and that depending on the substitutability of capital and labor and the firm s bargaining power in each market can mitigate or exacerbate the overinvestment result

is there a financial accelerator in us banking evidence from the cyclicality of banks price cost margins abstract we show that price cost margins for us banks are consistently countercyclical even after controlling for credit risk the term structure of interest rates and monetary policy this evidence supports the existence of a financial accelerator in us banking

bidding strategy of virtual power plant for participating in energy and spinning reserve markets part i problem formulation this paper addresses the bidding problem faced by a virtual power plant vpp in a joint market of energy and spinning reserve service the proposed bidding strategy is a non equilibrium model based on the deterministic price based unit commitment pbuc which takes the supply demand balancing constraint and security constraints of vpp itself into account the presented model creates a single operating profile from a composite of the parameters characterizing each distributed energy resources der which is a component of vpp and incorporates network constraints into its description of the capabilities of the portfolio the presented model is a nonlinear mixed integer programming with inter temporal constraints and solved by genetic algorithm ga

optimal monetary policy in a model of the credit channel we study a simple extension of the basic new keynesian set up in which we relax the assumption of frictionless financial markets due to asymmetric information and default risk bank lending rates incorporate a spread over the deposit rate we demonstrate that financial frictions affect aggregate dynamics mainly through their impact on firms financing costs which increase in both the deposit rate and in the spread between lending and deposit rates welfare includes a concern for smoothing these two financial market variables our numerical simulations suggest that an aggressive easing of policy is optimal in response to adverse financial market shocks

a model of the commercial loan rate this paper explores the theoretical and empirical determinants of the commercial loan rate charged by commercial banks based on a model of financial intermediary behavior which assumes monopolistic competition in asset and liability markets the model incorporates the constraint that banks must maintain at least a minimum quantity of bonds in asset portfolios equations are estimated on a time series basis to explain the behavior of commercial loan rates over the period 1953 to 1980 the evidence appears consistent with the hypothesis that commercial banks operate in a market characterized by imperfect competition and that they explicitly set loan rates the development of large scale econometric models has focused attention on the operation of the commercial loan market because of the importance of commercial loan activity in the transmission of monetary policy moreover it is commonly accepted that the quantity of commercial loans or changes in these loans has an important influence on the holding of free reserves by commercial banks and this implies that the commercial loan market has an effect on the supply of money 2 nevertheless the determinants of commercial loan rates have drawn relatively little analytical attention previous work on the commercial loan market has generally focused on the question of whether this market is characterized by credit rationing 3 most studies assume that the commercial loan market is generally competitive but at times the commercial loan rate does not clear the market the quantity of loans transacted is constrained by the supply function and commercial banks engage in nonprice rationing of customers a corollary of this rationing hypothesis is that events in the deposit market have an important influence on the quantity of commercial loans 4 the purpose of this paper is to explore the determinants of the commercial

optimal simple and implementable monetary and fiscal rules welfare maximizing monetary and fiscal policy rules are studied in a model with sticky prices money and distortionary taxation the ramsey optimal policy is used as a point of comparison the main findings are the size of the inflation coefficient in the interest rate rule plays a minor role for welfare it matters only insofar as it affects the determinacy of equilibrium optimal monetary policy features a muted response to output interest rate rules that feature a positive response to output can lead to significant welfare losses the welfare gains from interest rate smoothing are negligible optimal fiscal policy is passive the optimal monetary and fiscal rule combination attains virtually the same level of welfare as the ramsey optimal policy

optimal monetary policy with countercyclical credit spreads we study optimal monetary policy in a new keynesian dynamic stochastic general equilibrium dsge model with a credit channel and relationship lending in banking we show that borrowers bank specific deep habits give rise to countercyclical credit spreads which in turn make optimal monetary policy depart substantially from price stability under both discretion and commitment our analysis shows that the welfare costs of setting monetary policy under discretion with respect to the optimal ramsey plan and of using simpler suboptimal policy rules are strictly increasing in the magnitude of deep habits in credit markets and market power in banking

on fiscal multipliers estimates from a medium scale dsge model this paper contributes to the debate on fiscal multipliers in the context of a structural model i estimate a micro founded dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model that features a rich fiscal policy block and a transmission mechanism for government spending shocks using bayesian techniques for us data

arima models to predict next day electricity prices price forecasting is becoming increasingly relevant to producers and consumers in the new competitive electric power markets both for spot markets and long term contracts price forecasts are necessary to develop bidding strategies or negotiation skills in order to maximize benefit this paper provides a method to predict next day electricity prices based on the arima methodology arima techniques are used to analyze time series and in the past have been mainly used for load forecasting due to their accuracy and mathematical soundness a detailed explanation of the aforementioned arima models and results from mainland spain and californian markets are presented

liquidity monetary policy and the financial crisis a new monetarist approach a model of public and private liquidity integrates financial intermediation theory with a new monetarist monetary framework nonpassive fiscal policy and costs of operating a currency system imply that an optimal policy deviates from the friedman rule a liquidity trap can exist in equilibrium away from the friedman rule and there exists a permanent nonneutrality of money driven by an illiquidity effect financial frictions can produce a financial crisis phenomenon that can be mitigated by conventional open market operations working in an unconventional manner private asset purchases by the central bank are either irrelevant or they reallocate credit and redistribute income jel e13 e44 e52 e62 g01 liquidity is a class of assets that is useful in exchange some of these liquid assets are government liabilities federal reserve notes treasury bills and treasury notes some are private liabilities the deposit liabilities of banks and some asset backed securities for example conventional wisdom holds that the main role of a central bank is to manage public liquidity in a manner that controls inflation and enhances the provision of private liquidity and credit however the mechanism by which central bank actions work to perform this role still appears to be poorly understood as has been highlighted by the financial crisis and the ensuing policy responses the purpose of this paper is to build a model of public and private liquidity that captures the features of modern economies essential to the analysis of monetary policy and that can be used to shed light on some current monetary policy problems and questions what is a liquid asset and what roles do privately provided and publicly provided liquid assets play in exchange in a model where we capture these roles for liquid assets what are the implications for monetary policy under what circumstances can a liquidity trap occur how does monetary policy work when there is a positive quantity of excess reserves held by banks what does a financial crisis do to the supply of private liquidity and what should monetary policy do in response

a study of basic bidding strategy in clearing pricing auctions this paper models bidding behaviors of suppliers in electricity auction markets under clearing pricing rule and with some simplified bidding assumptions optimal bidding strategy of suppliers is derived by solving a set of differential equations that specify the necessary conditions for bidders to maximize their expected payoffs the derived result indicates that bidders have incentives to mark up their bids above their costs of production the amount of markup depends on the probability of winning below and on the margin that are computed from the cost distribution of all suppliers market demand and the number of suppliers participating in the auction

resolving society s energy trilemma through the energy justice metric carbon dioxide emissions continue to increase to the detriment of society in many forms one of the difficulties faced is the imbalance between the competing aims of economics politics and the environment which form the trilemma of energy policy this article advances that this energy trilemma can be resolved through energy justice energy justice develops the debate on energy policy to one that highlights cosmopolitanism progresses thinking beyond economics and incorporates a new futuristic perspective to capture these dynamics of energy justice this research developed an energy justice metric ejm that involves the calculation of several metrics 1 a country national ejm 2 an ejm for different energy infrastructure and 3 an ejm which is incorporated into economic models that derive costs for energy infrastructure projects an ejm is modeled for china the european union and the united states and for different energy infrastructure in the united kingdom the ejm is plotted on a ternary phase diagram which is used in the sciences for analyzing the relationship trilemma of three forms of matter the development of an ejm can provide a tool for decision making on energy policy and one that solves the energy trilemma with a just and equitable approach

optimal monetary policy with the cost channel in the standard new keynesian framework an optimizing policy maker does not face a trade off between stabilizing the inflation rate and stabilizing the gap between actual output and output under flexible prices an ad hoc exogenous cost push shock is typically added to the inflation equation to generate a meaningful policy problem in this paper we show that a cost push shock arises endogenously when a cost channel for monetary policy is introduced into the new keynesian model a cost channel is present when firms marginal cost depends directly on the nominal rate of interest besides providing empirical evidence for a cost channel we explore its implications for optimal monetary policy we show that its presence alters the optimal policy problem in important ways for example both the output gap and inflation are allowed to fluctuate in response to productivity and demand shocks under optimal monetary policy

optimal debt structure and the number of creditors within an optimal contracting framework we analyze the optimal number of creditors a company borrows from we also analyze the optimal allocation of security interests among creditors and intercreditor voting rules that govern renegotiation of debt contracts the key to our analysis is the idea that these aspects of the debt structure affect the outcome of debt renegotiation following a default debt structures that lead to inefficient renegotiation are beneficial in that they deter default but they are also costly if default is beyond a manager s control the optimal debt structure balances these effects we characterize how the optimal debt structure depends on firm characteristics such as its technology its credit rating and the market for its assets

learning about monetary policy rules when the cost channel matters abstract we study how monetary policy may affect determinacy and expectational stability e stability of rational expectations equilibrium when the cost channel of monetary policy matters focusing on instrumental taylor type rules and optimal target rules we show that standard policies can induce indeterminacy and expectational instability when the cost channel is present a naive application of the traditional taylor principle could be misleading and expectations based reaction function under discretion does not always induce determinate and e stable equilibrium this result contrasts with the findings of bullard and mitra 2002 learning about monetary policy rules journal of monetary economics 49 1105 1129 and evans and honkapohja 2003 expectations and stability problem for optimal monetary policies review of economic studies 70 807 824 for the standard new keynesian model the ability of the central bank to commit to an optimal policy is an antidote to these problems

a two tier matrix game approach for obtaining joint bidding strategies in ftr and energy markets transmission congestion results in revenue collected from the loads that often exceeds the payment made to the generators the financial transmission right ftr is an instrument that allows the independent system operator iso to redistribute the excess revenue congestion charge among the market participants generators and loads hold ftrs to hedge against congestion charges since the revenues from the ftr and energy markets are interdependent each generator and load must have a joint bidding strategy for ftr and energy markets to maximize its total payoff this paper presents a two tier matrix game model that allows the generators and loads to obtain joint bidding strategies the model also allows the isos and the market designers to assess the impact of various network configurations and rules on market performance e g market power the two tier model considers multiple participants multidimensional bid vectors network contingencies and varying demand we conducted a numerical validation of our model by analyzing the three node network studied by joskow and tirole 2000 additional numerical studies were conducted on a five node network to examine the impact of holding ftrs on the bidding strategies in the energy market and joint payoffs of the participants

a joint energy and transmission rights auction proposal and properties an auction based process is proposed that allows power market participants to acquire and reconfigure financial transmission rights the process simultaneously accommodates flowgate and point to point options and obligations along with energy production and consumption futures a sequence of auctions is held during which participants can buy and sell rights which are then settled in a day ahead or real time auction at which time all rights are cashed out by allowing flowgate and point to point obligations and options to be reconfigured and exchanged the market can decide what combination of financial rights are most useful to power generators consumers and traders rights can be specified not only for capacity of individual flowgates but also for more complex transmission constraints such as nomograms under certain conditions we prove that the auction is revenue adequate for the market operator in that payments to rights holders cannot exceed congestion revenues we present a linearized dc auction along with a numerical illustration

multiple versus single banking relationships theory and evidence a theory of the optimal number of banking relationships is developed and tested using matched bank firm data according to the theory relationship banks may be unable to continue funding profitable projects owing to internal problems and a firm may thus have to refinance from nonrelationship banks the latter however face an adverse selection problem as they do not know the quality of the project and may refuse to lend in these circumstances multiple banking can reduce the probability of an early liquidation of the project the empirical evidence supports the predictions of the model

monetary non neutrality in a multisector menu cost model empirical evidence suggests that as much as one third of the u s business cycle is due to nominal shocks we calibrate a multisector menu cost model using new evidence on the cross sectional distribution of the frequency and size of price changes in the u s economy we augment the model to incorporate intermediate inputs we show that the introduction of heterogeneity in the frequency of price change triples the degree of monetary non neutrality generated by the model we furthermore show that the introduction of intermediate inputs raises the degree of monetary non neutrality by another factor of three without adversely affecting the model s ability to match the large average size of price changes a single sector model with a frequency of price change equal to the median rather than the mean generates monetary non neutrality similar to that in our multisector model our multisector model with intermediate inputs generates variation in real output in response to calibrated aggregate nominal shocks that can account for roughly 23 of the u s business cycle

lending relationships and monetary policy financial intermediation and bank spreads are important elements in the analysis of business cycle transmission and monetary policy we present a simple framework that introduces lending relationships a relevant feature of financial intermediation that has been so far neglected in the monetary economics literature into a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model with staggered prices and cost channels our main findings are i banking spreads move countercyclically generating amplified output responses ii spread movements are important for monetary policy making even when a standard taylor rule is employed iii modifying the policy rule to include a banking spread adjustment improves stabilization of shocks and increases welfare when compared to rules that only respond to output gap and inflation and finally iv the presence of strong lending relationships in the banking sector can lead to indeterminacy of equilibrium forcing the central bank to react to spread movements

optimal monetary policy in a model with agency costs this paper integrates a fully explicit model of agency costs into an otherwise standard dynamic new keynesian model in a particularly transparent way a principal result is the characterization of agency costs as endogenous markup shocks in an output gap version of the phillips curve the model s utility based welfare criterion is derived explicitly and includes a measure of credit market tightness that we interpret as a risk premium the paper also fully characterizes optimal monetary policy and provides conditions under which zero inflation is the optimal policy finally optimal policy can be expressed as an inflation targeting criterion that depending upon parameter values can be either forward or backward looking

the cyclicality of price cost margins in banking an empirical analysis of its determinants i introduction in this paper we study the cyclical behavior of price cost margins in banking calculated as the difference between the interest rate on loans and deposits using time series quarterly data for the period 1979 2005 in the united states this cyclical behavior of banks price cost margins a key fact about business fluctuations has received little attention before dueker and thornton 1997 find evidence that in cyclical downturns banks opt for a relatively high price cost margin however they focus exclusively on the markup of the bank prime lending rate over the marginal cost of funds for banks mandelman 2006 presents evidence on the cyclicality of margins for a large sample of countries and uses foreign bank penetration to explain the behavior of margins 1 in olivero 2005 aliaga diaz 2006 and aliaga diaz and olivero 2010a we document the countercyclicality of banks price cost margins in the united states in that paper we do so using an atheoretical methodology based on var forecast errors to measure comovement between variables 2 in this paper we build on this atheoretical evidence and take a step further by constructing an empirical model of the determinants of the cyclical behavior of margins here we take a theory based approach to decide on the inclusion of the relevant regressors that belong to this model doing so allows us to contribute to the literature by providing potential explanations for the previously documented countercyclical nature of margins monetary policy and credit risk could be suggested as the main and potentially the only determinants of the cyclical behavior of margins on the one hand the bank lending channel of monetary transmission predicts that the federal funds rate as a monetary policy indicator and margins are directly related therefore if policy rates exhibit a particular cyclical behavior not controlling for monetary policy could bias the estimations on the cyclical behavior of margins on the other hand credit risk is expected to be countercyclical and to raise margins so that default should help explain the countercyclicality of the latter based on these two observations our empirical methodology consists of two steps in a first step we test whether the negative and significant contemporaneous sample correlations between margins and a business cycle indicator are robust to the inclusion of controls related to monetary policy default risk and banking regulation results show it is so that there seems to be other channels through which fluctuations in the economy give rise to the observed countercyclicality of margins in a second step we look for these channels and offer several potential explanations for the observed behavior interest rate risk the economy s financial depth banks liquidity and capitalization and the share of total assets held by large banks all exert a significant impact on the behavior of margins over the business cycle these conclusions are consistent across alternative definitions of the margins and the business cycle indicator our work is linked to two strands of research in macroeconomics first our countercyclicality results are linked to the large literature on countercyclical markups in goods markets and its effects on aggregate demand started by rotemberg and saloner 1986 and rotemberg and woodford 1992 second price cost margins that vary endogenously and countercyclically in response to the state of the economy are a necessary condition for the existence of a financial accelerator as an amplifier of business fluctuations see for example bernanke and gertler 1989 and bernanke gertler and gilchrist 1998 therefore the countercyclical nature of price cost margins that we study here provides empirical support to the large body of literature in macroeconomic theory on this financial accelerator with price cost margins in the market for credit being countercyclical credit becomes more expensive in bad times firms may delay investment and production as a result and recessions may be exacerbated

the benefits of lending relationships evidence from small business data this paper empirically examines how ties between a firm and its creditors affect the availability and cost of funds to the firm we analyze data collected in a survey of small firms by the small business administration the primary benefit of building close ties with an institutional creditor is that the availability of financing increases we find smaller effects on the price of credit attempts to widen the circle of relationships by borrowing from multiple lenders increases the price and reduces the availability of credit in sum relationships are valuable and appear to operate more through quantities rather than prices

risk constrained bidding strategy with stochastic unit commitment this paper develops optimal bidding strategies based on hourly unit commitment in a generation company genco that participates in energy and ancillary services markets the price based unit commitment problem with uncertain market prices is modeled as a stochastic mixed integer linear program the market price uncertainty is modeled using the scenario approach monte carlo simulation is applied to generate scenarios scenario reduction techniques are applied to reduce the size of the stochastic price based unit commitment problem and postprocessing is applied based on marginal cost of committed units to refine bidding curves the financial risk associated with market price uncertainty is modeled using expected downside risk which is incorporated explicitly as a constraint in the problem accordingly the proposed method provides a closed loop solution to devising specific strategies for risk based bidding in a genco illustrative examples show the impact of market price uncertainty on genco s hourly commitment schedule and discuss the way gencos could decrease financial risks by managing expected payoffs

some evidence on the empirical significance of credit rationing this paper examines the credit rationing debate using detailed contract information on over one million commercial bank loans from 1977 to 1988 while commercial loan rates are sticky consistent with rationing this stickiness varies with loan contract terms in ways that are not predicted by equilibrium credit rationing theory in addition the proportion of new loans issued under commitment does not increase significantly when credit markets are tight despite the fact that borrowers without commitments can be rationed whereas commitment borrowers are contractually insulated from rationing overall the data suggest that equilibrium rationing is not a significant macroeconomic phenomenon