bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The Reliability of Output Gap Estimates in Real Time
Authors: Orphanides Athanasios , Van Norden Simon
Published: August 2019

Compared to its central role in policy discussions in the United States and most other developed countries, the reliability of the measurement of the output gap has attracted relatively little academic study. Furthermore, both the academic literature and the debate among practitioners have tended to neglect a key factor. Although in a policy setting it is necessary to estimate the current (i.e. end-of-sample) output gap without the benefit of knowing the future, most studies concentrate on measurement that employs data that only become available later. In this paper we examine the reliability of alternative output detrending methods, with special attention to the accuracy of real-time estimates. We show that ex post revisions of the output gap are of the same order of magnitude as the output gap itself, that these ex post revisions are highly persistent and that real-time estimates tend to be severely biased around business cycle turning points, when the cost of policy induced errors due to incorrect measurement is at its greatest. We investigate the reasons for these ex post revisions, and find that, although important, the ex post revision of published data is not the primary source of revisions in output gap measurements. The bulk of the problem is due to the pervasive unreliability of end-of-sample estimates of the trend in output.
Interest-Rate Smoothing and Optimal Monetary Policy: A Review of Recent Empirical Evidence
Authors: Wieland Volker W. , Sack Brian
Published: August 2019

The Federal Reserve and other central banks tend to change short-term interest rates in sequences of small steps in the same direction and reverse the direction of interest rate movements only infrequently. These characteristics, often referred to as interest-rate smoothing, have led to criticism that policy responds too little and too late to macroeconomic developments, suggesting to some observers that the Federal Reserve has an objective of minimizing interest-rate volatility. This paper, however, argues that the observed degree of interest-rate smoothing may well represent optimal behavior on the part of central banks whose only objectives are to stabilize output and inflation. We summarize recent research on three different explanations of interest-rate smoothing: forward-looking behavior by market participants, measurement error associated with key macroeconomic variables, and uncertainty regarding relevant structural parameters.
The Causes of Business Cycles and the Cyclicality of Real Wages
Authors: Fleischman Charles A.
Published: August 2019

A model's ability to explain procyclical movements in real wages has become an important benchmark by which macroeconomists judge business cycle theories. Because Keynesian models with sticky nominal wages predict countercyclical real wages, they have been criticized and dismissed in favor of Real Business Cycle models or New Keynesian models based on price stickiness or countercyclical markups. The bulk of the evidence for procyclical real wages, however, comes from studies using panel data that estimate the unconditional, contemporaneous correlation between real wages and the unemployment rate. These studies constrain real wage cyclicality to be the same irrespective of the source of the business cycle fluctuations. This paper relaxes this constraint and estimates a structural VAR identified by long-run restrictions on the responses of hours and output to labor supply, technology, oil price, and aggregate demand shocks. It finds that real wages are procyclical in response to technology shocks and oil price shocks, but are countercyclical in response to labor supply shocks and aggregate demand shocks. The procyclicality of real wages during the periods covered by the panel data sets may be explained by the importance of the productivity slowdown and the 1970s oil price shocks. The results highlight the limitations of using the unconditional, contemporaneous correlation between real wages and business cycle indicators to sort out competing theories of the business cycle, and cast strong doubt on the appropriateness of the rejection of sticky wage models.
Is Hysteresis Important for U.S. Unemployment?
Authors: Roberts John M. , Morin Norman
Published: August 2019

We look for evidence of "hysteresis" in the U.S. unemployment rate - that is, that current labor market outcomes affect the future equilibrium level of the unemployment rate. We first examine (using a variety of econometric tests for unit roots) whether the unemployment rate tends to come back to a long-run average over time. On balance, our results suggest that the unemployment rate tends to return to a long-run value, ruling out the possibility of permanent hysteresis. We look for evidence of temporary hysteresis by examining whether lagged unemployment enters a standard Phillips-curve model of U.S. inflation. We find week evidence in support of temporary hysteresis, but the effect is not large, suggesting that hysteresis is not very important for U.S. unemployment.
Share Repurchases and Employee Stock Options and their Implications for S&P 500 Share Retirements and Expected Returns
Authors: Liang J. Nellie , Sharpe Steven A.
Published: August 2019

We estimate the effects of share repurchases and employee stock option exercises on net share retirements for large S&P; 500 companies. We find that, over the past five years, gross repurchases have reduced shares outstanding 2 percent annually; but, owing to the exercise of employee stock options, only about half of those shares were actually retired. Given the recent pace of employee stock option grants, and assuming that equities continue to be priced at about 30 times earnings, our analysis suggests that the pace of net share retirements will fall well below the pace of the last few years, unless corporations use nearly all their earnings to fund shareholder payouts. Moreover, over the long haul, assuming corporations need to retain 40 to 50 percent of their earnings to invest and grow at historical rates, the long-run average pace of net share retirements is likely to fall to 1/2 percent or less.
Do Pension Plans with Participant Investment Choice Teach Households to Hold More Equity?
Authors: Weisbenner Scott J.
Published: August 2019

Some retirement plans allow the participant to choose how funds are invested. Having to direct investments may provide the participant with financial education. This paper finds that households covered by pension plans in which the employee chooses investments are significantly more apt to hold stock outside of their retirement plan than are households with pension plans offering no such choice. The effect of investment choice upon non-pension asset allocation cannot be explained by portfolio rebalancing or differences in income and saving preferences across households. This provides some evidence that the design of a pension plan can influence an employee's financial decisions.
Nonparametric Estimation of Multifactor Continuous Time Interest Rate Models
Authors: Downing Chris
Published: August 2019

This paper studies the finite sample properties of the kernel regression method of Boudoukh, Richardson, Stanton and Whitelaw (1998) for estimating multifactor continuous {time term structure models. Monte Carlo simulations are employed, with a grid-search techniqueto find the optimal kernel bandwidth. The performance of the estimator is also studied under model misspecification. Irrelevant regressors reduce efficiency and induce additional biases in the estimates. Using Treasury bill data, I test whether the estimates produced by the non-parametric estimator are statistically distinguishable from estimates obtained under a parametric model. The kernel regressions pick up nonlinearities that the parametric model cannot capture.
Are Oil Shocks Inflationary? Asymmetric and Nonlinear Specifications versus Changes in Regime
Authors: Hooker Mark A.
Published: August 2019

This paper estimates the effects of oil price changes on U.S. inflation in a Phillips curve framework, allowing for some of the asymmetries, nonlinearities, and structural breaks that have been found in the literature on the real effects of oil price shocks. It finds that since around 1980, oil price changes seem to affect inflation only through their direct share in a price index, with little or no pass-through into core measures, while before 1980, oil shocks contributed substantially to core inflation. This structural-break characterization appears robust to a variety of respecifications and to fit the data better than asymmetric and nonlinear oil price alternatives. Preliminary evidence suggests that a change in the reaction of monetary policy to oil shocks is part of the explanation.
Inflation Targeting and Target Instability
Authors: Tetlow Robert
Published: August 2019

Monetary policy is modeled as governed by a known rule, except for a time-varying target rate of inflation. The variable target is taken as representing either discretionary deviations from the rule, or as the outcome of a policymaking committee that is unable to arrive at a consensus. Stochastic simulations of FRB/US, the Board of Governors&#x27; large, rational-expectations model of the U.S. economy, are used to examine the benefits of reducing the variability in the target rate of inflation. We find that putting credible boundaries on target variability introduces an important non-linearity in expectations. This improves policy performance by focusing agents&#x27; expectations on policy objectives. But improvements are limited; it does not generally pay to reduce target variability to zero. The non-linearity in expectations can be used to conduct a policy with greater attention to output stabilization than otherwise. The results provide insights as to why inflation-targeting countries use bands and why the bands are narrower than studies suggest they should be. Also, a numerical technique that approximates to arbitrary precision a non-linear process with a linear method is also demonstrated. This greatly speeds the simulations and makes them more robust.
Computers, Obsolescence, and Productivity
Authors: Whelan Karl
Published: August 2019

This paper examines the role that computers have played in boosting U.S. economic growth in recent years. The paper focuses on two effects--the effect of increased productivity in the computer-producing sector and the effect of investments in computing equipment on the productivity of those who use them--and concludes that together they account for almost all of the recent acceleration in U.S. labor productivity. In calculating the computer-usage effect, standard NIPA measures of the capital stock are inappropriate for growth accounting because they do not account for technological obsolescence; this occurs when a machine that is still productive is retired because it is no longer near the technological frontier. Using a theoretical framework that explicitly accounts for technological obsolescence, alternative estimates of the computer capital stock are developed that imply larger effects on growth of computer capital accumulation than are suggested by the NIPA stocks.
Corporate Share Repurchases in the 1990s: What Role Do Stock Options Play?
Authors: Weisbenner Scott J.
Published: August 2019

This paper investigates how the growth of stock option programs has affected corporate payout policy. Given that earnings per share (EPS) is widely used in equity valuation, some corporations may opt to repurchase shares to avoid the dilution of EPS that results from past stock option grants. Executives may also prefer distributing cash by repurchasing shares or retaining more earnings, as opposed to increasing dividends, to enhance the value of their own stock options. This paper tests the importance of these two hypotheses using cross-sectional and panel data on stock option programs. I find that stock options granted to top executives affect payout policy differently than do stock options granted to other employees. Option grants in general are associated with increased share repurchases and increased total payouts. However, the larger is the executives' holding of stock options, the more apt the firm is to retain more earnings and curtail cash distributions. Analysis of panel data for a sample of large firms suggests that firms conduct an ongoing repurchase of shares over the life of an option that undoes much of the dilution to EPS that results from past stock option grants.
Do the Rich Save More?
Authors: Dynan Karen E. , Skinner Jonathan , Zeldes Stephen P.
Published: August 2019

The issue of whether higher lifetime income households save a larger fraction of their income is an important factor in the evaluation of tax and macroeconomic policy. Despite an outpouring of research on this topic in the 1950s and 1960s, the question remains unresolved and has since received little attention. This paper revisits the issue, using new empirical methods and the Panel Study on Income Dynamics, the Survey of Consumer Finances, and the Consumer Expenditure Survey. We first consider the various ways in which life cycle models can be altered to generate differences in saving rates by income groups: differences in Social Security benefits, different time preference rates, non-homothetic preferences, bequest motives, uncertainty, and consumption floors. Using a variety of instruments for lifetime income, we find a strong positive relationship between personal saving rates and lifetime income. The data do not support theories relying on time preference rates, non-homothetic preferences, or variations in Social Security benefits. Instead, the evidence is consistent with models in which precautionary saving and bequest motives drive variations in saving rates across income groups. Finally, we illustrate how models that assume a constant rate of saving across income groups can yield erroneous predictions.
The Effects of Geographic Expansion on Bank Efficiency
Authors: Berger Allen N. , DeYoung Robert
Published: August 2019

We assess the effects of geographic expansion on bank efficiency using cost and profit efficiency for over 7,000 U.S. banks, 1993-1998. We find that parent organizations exercise some control over the efficiency of their affiliates, although this control tends to dissipate with distance to the affiliate. However, on average, distance-related efficiency effects tend to be modest, suggesting that some efficient organizations can overcome any effects of distance. The results imply there may be no particular optimal geographic scope for banking organizations-- some may operate efficiently within a single region, while others may operate efficiently on a nationwide or international basis.
The Production-Side Approach to Estimating Embodied Technological Change
Authors: Sakellaris Plutarchos , Wilson Daniel J.
Published: August 2019

We estimate the rate of embodied technological change directly from plant-level manufacturing data on current output and input choices along with histories on their vintages of equipment investment. Our estimates range between 8 and 17 percent for the typical U.S. manufacturing plant during the years 1972-1996. Any number in this range is substantially larger than is conventionally accepted with some important implications. First, the role of investment-specific technological change as an engine of growth is even larger than previously estimated. Second, existing producer durable price indices do not adequately account for quality change. As a result, measured capital stock growth is biased. Third, if accurate, the Hulten and Wykoff (1981) economic depreciation rates may primarily reflect obsolescence.
Does Stock Market Wealth Matter for Consumption?
Authors: Dynan Karen E. , Maki Dean M.
Published: August 2019

This paper explores the household behavior that underlies the link between wealth and consumption at the aggregate level. One possibility is that changes in wealth directly cause changes in consumption through their effect on households' contemporaneous budget sets; another possibility is that they merely predict changes in consumption because they signal changes in future income. Based on analysis of household-level data from the Consumer Expenditure Survey, we find that direct wealth effects begin to show up relatively quickly and continue to boost consumption growth for a number of quarters, in line with aggregate estimates. In contrast, we find that the indirect wealth channel is not an important determinant of consumption growth. We also estimate that an additional dollar of wealth leads households with moderate securities holdings to increase consumption between 5 cents and 15 cents, with the most likely gain in the lower part of this range.
GSEs, Mortgage Rates, and the Long-Run Effects of Mortgage Securitization
Authors: Passmore Wayne , Sparks Roger , Ingpen Jamie
Published: August 2019

Our paper compares mortgage securitization undertaken by government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) with that undertaken by private markets, with an emphasis on how each type of mortgage securitization affects mortgage rates. We build a model illustrating that market structure, government sponsorship, and the characteristics of the mortgages securitized are all important determinants of mortgage rates. We find that GSEs generally--but not always--lower mortgage rates, particularly when the GSEs behave competitively, because the GSEs' implicit government backing allows them to sell securities without the credit enhancements needed in the private sector. Using our simulation model, we demonstrate that when mortgages eligible for purchase by the GSEs have characteristics similar to other mortgages, then implicit government backing generates differences in mortgage rates that are similar to those currently observed in the mortgage market (which range between zero and fifty basis points). However, if the mortgages purchased by GSEs differ substantially from other mortgages and the GSEs behave competitively, the simulated spread in mortgage rates can be much larger than that observed in the data.
Do Provisional Estimates of Output Miss Economic Turning Points?
Authors: Dynan Karen E. , Elmendorf Douglas W.
Published: August 2019

Initial estimates of aggregate output and its components are based on very incomplete source data, so they may not fully capture shifts in economic conditions. In particular, if those estimates are based partly on trends in preceding quarters, provisional estimates may overstate activity when actual output is decelerating and understate it when actual output is accelerating. We examine this issue using the Real Time Data Set for Macroeconomists, which contains contemporaneous estimates of GNP or GDP and its components beginning in the late 1960s, as well as financial-market information and other data. We find that provisional estimates tend to partially miss accelerations and decelerations. We also consider whether better use of contemporaneous data could improve the quality of provisional estimates. We find that provisional estimates do not represent optimal forecasts of the current estimates, but that the improvement in forecast quality from including additional data appears to be quite small.
Monetary Policy Rules, Macroeconomic Stability and Inflation: A View from the Trenches
Authors: Orphanides Athanasios
Published: August 2019

I estimate a forward-looking monetary policy reaction function for the Federal Reserve for the periods before and after Paul Volcker's appointment as Chairman in 1979, using information that was available to the FOMC in real time from 1966 to 1995. The results suggest broad similarities in policy and point to a forward looking approach to policy consistent with a strong reaction to inflation forecasts during both periods. This contradicts the hypothesis, based on analysis with ex post constructed data, that the instability of the Great Inflation was the result of weak FOMC policy responses to expected inflation. A difference is that prior to Volcker's appointment, policy was too activist in reacting to perceived output gaps that retrospectively proved overambitious. Drawing on contemporaneous accounts of FOMC policy, I discuss the implications of the findings for alternative explanations of the Great Inflation and the improvement in macroeconomic stability since then.
Rule-of-Thumb Behaviour and Monetary Policy
Authors: Amato Jeffery D. , Laubach Thomas
Published: August 2019

We investigate the implications of rule-of-thumb behaviour on the part of consumers or price setters for optimal monetary policy and simple interest rate rules. The existence of such behaviour leads to endogenous persistence in output and inflation; changes the transmission of shocks to these variables; and alters the policymaker's welfare objective. Our main finding is that highly inertial policy is optimal regardless of what fraction of agents occasionally follow a rule of thumb. We also find that the interest rate rule that implements optimal policy in the purely optimising case, and a first-difference version of Taylor's (1993) rule, have desirable properties in all of the cases we consider. By contrast, the coefficients in other optimised simple rules tend to be extremely sensitive with respect to the fraction of rule-of-thumb behaviour and changes in other parameters of the model.
401(k)s and Household Saving: New Evidence from the Survey of Consumer Finances
Authors: Pence Karen M.
Published: August 2019

Although households have invested billions in 401(k) accounts, these balances may not be new saving if workers invest money that they would have saved in the program’s absence. In this paper, I assess the effect of the 401(k) program on saving by comparing changes in the wealth of 401(k) eligible and ineligible households over the 1989-1998 period using data from the Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF). This comparison may yield misleading estimates of the effect of 401(k)s on saving if eligible households have a higher taste for saving than ineligible households or if they begin the 1989-1998 period with greater amounts of wealth. I adjust for these potential biases by constructing subjective measures of saving taste from questions on the SCF and by transforming the wealth measure with the inverse hyperbolic sine. Incorporating these adjustments suggests that 401(k)s have little to no effect on saving. If 401(k)s do not increase saving, where do 401(k) balances come from? I examine two plausible margins of substitution: household substitution of 401(k)s for other assets and firm substitution of 401(k)s for defined-benefit pensions. I find weak evidence that households fund their 401(k) accounts, at least in part, by decreasing their holdings of real assets. However, I find no evidence that 401(k) balances stem from firms replacing traditional defined benefit pensions with 401(k) plans.
Investment-Specific Technical Change in the US (1947-2000): Measurement and Macroeconomic Consequences
Authors: Cummins Jason G. , Violante Giovanni L.
Published: August 2019

By extrapolating Gordon's (1990) measures of the quality-bias in the official price indexes, we construct quality-adjusted price indexes for 24 types of equipment and software (E&S;) from 1947 to 2000 and use them to measure technical change at the aggregate and at the industry level. Technological improvement in E&S; accounts for an important fraction of postwar GDP growth and plays a key role in the productivity resurgence of the 1990s. Driving this finding is 4 percent annual growth in the quality of E&S; in the postwar period and more than 6 percent annual growth in the 1990s. The acceleration in the 1990s occurred in every industry, consistent with the idea that information technology represents a general purpose technology. Furthermore, we measure for the aggregate economy and different sectors the "technological gap": how much more productive new machines are compared to the average machine. We show that the technological gap explains the dynamics of investment in new technologies and the returns to human capital, consistent with Nelson and Phelps' (1966) conjecture. Since the technological gap continues to increase -- it more than doubled in the past 20 years -- our evidence supports the view that at least some of the recent increase in productivity growth is sustainable.
Estimated Variance of Seasonally Adjusted Series
Authors: Cleveland William P.
Published: August 2019

For model-based seasonal adjustment, there are explicit formulas for obtaining the variance of the seasonal factors or the seasonally adjusted series. For series adjusted with X-11 or X-12, variance estimates are generally based on a linear approximation of the seasonal adjustment procedure. The work of Pfeffermann (1992) extends earlier work by Wolter and Monseur. This study uses simulated series and comparisons of alternative seasonal adjustment results for a few economic series to assess the accuracy of variance estimates. Pfeffermann's method gives good results when the true seasonal is centered and follows a fairly smooth evolution from year to year. Comparisons with formula-based computations and estimates from the Tramo-Seats programs by Maravall and Gomez show the latter can give good variance results for series adjusted with X-11 even if the seasonal factors themselves differ from X-11 factors.
Interpreting the Significance of the Lagged Interest Rate in Estimated Monetary Policy Rules
Authors: English William B. , Nelson William R. , Sack Brian
Published: August 2019

Many researchers have found that the lagged interest rate enters estimated monetary policy rules with overwhelming significance. However, a recent paper by Rudebusch (2002) argues that the lagged interest rate is not a fundamental component of the U.S. policy rule, and that its significance arises from the omission of serially correlated variables from the policy rule. This paper demonstrates that, contrary to Rudebusch's claims, these two hypotheses can be directly distinguished in the estimation of the policy rule. Our findings indicate that while serially correlated omitted variables may be present, the lagged interest rate enters the policy rule on its own right and plays an important role in describing the behavior of the federal funds rate.
What Drives the Persistent Competitiveness of Small Banks?
Authors: Brady Thomas F. , Barnett William A.
Published: August 2019

Several trends in the financial industry could have weakened the competitiveness of small banks in recent years. Despite those challenges, small banks have grown more rapidly than larger banks over the period from 1985 to 2001, and their profitability has been sustained at high levels. However, small banks have needed to increase the interest rates offered on deposit accounts in order to attract progressively more deposit funding. In this paper, we provide empirical evidence that this increased interest cost primarily reflects the high rate of return that small banks were able to earn on their assets. Moreover, we show with an arbitrage model that the decline in the real value of deposit insurance has only a small effect on deposit rates as long as bank failure rates are in the low range of recent years.
Treasury Inflation-Indexed Debt: A Review of the U.S. Experience
Authors: Sack Brian , Elsasser Robert
Published: August 2019

This paper reviews the U.S. experience with inflation-indexed debt. To date, Treasury inflation-indexed securities have not been highly valued by investors, with the spread between the yields on nominal and inflation-indexed securities falling consistently below most measures of long-run inflation expectations. A number of factors might have contributed to the low relative valuation of TIIS, including the difficulty for investors of adjusting to a new asset class, the concentration of participation in the market, the lower liquidity of TIIS relative to nominal Treasury securities, and the divergent trends in the supply of nominal and inflation-indexed Treasury debt. As a result, inflation-indexed debt has not yet lived up to one of its main purposes--to reduce financing costs to the Treasury. However, there are signs that the TIIS market is still evolving, which could affect the valuation of TIIS going forward.
The Extreme Bounds of the Cross-Section of Expected Stock Returns
Authors: Durham J. B.
Published: August 2019

Several empirical studies report violations of the asset-pricing model of Sharpe (1964), Lintner (1965), and Black (1972). But, there is no consensus on specification in this literature, as such studies typically consider only a limited number of explanatory variables and do not satisfactorily control for previous findings. Extreme bound analysis (EBA), an imperfect but useful remedy for model uncertainty, suggests that comparatively few factors are robust. Given the cross-section of expected stock returns from July 1963 through December 2000, three of 23 variables - market size as well as short and medium run lagged return - pass the traditional EBA decision rule given all possible 3-, 4-, and 5-factor models of monthly stock returns. This paper also explores several potential improvements to EBA, including explicit consideration of possible multicollinearity, which largely does not affect the results, as well as sample divisions, which suggest that fewer variables are sturdy correlates of returns.
Consolidation and Efficiency in the Financial Sector: A Review of the International Evidence
Authors: Amel Dean F. , Barnes Colleen , Panetta Fabio , Salleo Carmelo
Published: August 2019

In response to fundamental changes in regulation and technology, the financial industry around the world is undergoing an unprecedented wave of consolidation. A growing body of empirical literature has attempted to measure the efficiency gains from M&As; however there is little sense of how the results might depend on the country, industry and time period analysed. In this paper we review critically works that cover the main sectors of the financial industry (commercial and investment banks, insurance and asset management companies) in the major industrialised countries over the last twenty years, searching for common patterns that transcend national and sectoral peculiarities. We find that consolidation in the financial sector is beneficial up to a relatively small size in order to reap economies of scale, but there is little evidence that mergers yield economies of scope or gains in managerial efficiency.
Market Power in Outputs and Inputs: An Empirical Application to Banking
Authors: Adams Robert M. , Roller Lars-Hendrik , Sickles Robin
Published: August 2019

This paper provides evidence on the empirical separability of input and output market imperfections. We specify a model of banking competition and simultaneously estimate bank conduct in output (loan) and input (deposit) markets. Our results suggest that firms display some degree of non-competitive behavior in both the loan and the deposit markets. Moreover, we find that the input side and the output side are empirically separable, that is, the measurement of market power on one side of the market is not affected by assuming that the other side of the market is perfectly competitive. Our results suggest that empirical studies of market power that concentrate on either the input side or the output side are not subject to significant misspecification error.
A Risk-Factor Model Foundation for Ratings-Based Bank Capital Rules
Authors: Gordy Michael B.
Published: August 2019

When economic capital is calculated using a portfolio model of credit value-at-risk, the marginal capital requirement for an instrument depends, in general, on the properties of the portfolio in which it is held. By contrast, ratings-based capital rules, including both the current Basel Accord and its proposed revision, assign a capital charge to an instrument based only on its own characteristics. I demonstrate that ratings-based capital rules can be reconciled with the general class of credit VaR models. Contributions to VaR are portfolio-invariant only if (a) there is only a single systematic risk factor driving correlations across obligors, and (b) no exposure in a portfolio accounts for more than an arbitrarily small share of total exposure. Analysis of rates of convergence to asymptotic VaR leads to a simple and accurate portfolio-level add-on charge for undiversified idiosyncratic risk. There is no similarly simple way to address violation of the single factor assumption.
What's Happened at Divested Bank Offices? An Empirical Analysis of Antitrust Divestitures in Bank Mergers
Authors: Pilloff Steven J.
Published: August 2019

In their competitive analysis of proposed bank mergers, the Federal Reserve Board, Department of Justice, and other agencies accept branch divestitures as an antitrust remedy in local markets where there is substantial overlap between the acquirer and target. The results of this study, which examines the performance of 751 branches that were divested between June 1989 and June 1998 in conjunction with a merger that raised possible competition issues, suggest that the policy of accepting branch divestitures as an antitrust remedy has been successful. Divested branches operate for lengths of time that are comparable to all branches, and even though they experience substantial deposit runoff around the time of the merger, divested branches subsequently exhibit deposit growth rates that are comparable to those of other similar branches. Cross-sectional analysis does not find any significant relationships between either deposit runoff or subsequent growth and various characteristics of the branch being sold or the firm that purchased it, except for some evidence that post-divestiture growth may increase with the size of the purchaser.
A Rolling Tide: Changes in the Distribution of Wealth in the U.S., 1989-2001
Authors: Kennickell Arthur B.
Published: August 2019

Over the period from 1989 to 2001, wealth in real terms grew broadly across U.S. families. Characterizing distributional changes is much more complex, and much more dependent on the specific questions asked. For example, there is evidence both from Forbes data on the 400 wealthiest Americans and from the SCF, which explicitly excludes families in the Forbes list, that wealth grew relatively strongly at the very top of the distribution. At the same time, the share of total household wealth held by the Forbes group rose. However, while the point estimate of the share of total wealth held by the wealthiest one percent of families as measured by the SCF also rose, the change is not statistically significant. In 2001, the division of wealth observed in the SCF attributed about a third each to the wealthiest 1 percent, the next wealthiest 9 percent, and the remaining 90 percent of the population. The paper decomposes wealth holdings and distributional shifts in a variety of other ways. Particular attention is given to families with negative net worth, families of older "baby boomer," and African American families.
Tunnels and Reserves in Monetary Policy Implementation
Authors: Whitesell William C.
Published: August 2019

In recent years, some central banks have implemented monetary policy without reserve requirements by using a ceiling and floor for overnight interest rates established by central bank lending and deposit facilities. This paper analyzes a theoretical model of such a "tunnel" system and the benefits of adding reserve requirements to it. However, reserve requirements may involve social costs owing to the reserve avoidance activities of banks. The paper also presents a modified model with no reserve avoidance, where banks optimally choose to hold voluntary reserve requirements. The paper highlights the importance for central banks to consider such models in light of idiosyncratic features of their own institutional environment, which may importantly condition the advisability of any particular approach.
Modeling Aggregate Investment: A Fundamentalist Approach
Authors: Roberts John M.
Published: August 2019

This paper applies some lessons from recent estimation of investment models with firm-level data to the aggregate data with an eye to rehabilitating convex costs of adjusting the capital stock. In recent firm-level work, the response of investment to output and other "fundamental" variables is interpreted in terms of the traditional convex-adjustment-cost model, implying annual capital-stock adjustment speeds on the order of 15 to 35 percent. In aggregate data, I find that this "fundamentalist" model can account for the reduced-form effect of output on investment and the estimated capital-stock adjustment speed is similar to those from firm-level studies B--around 25 percent per year. To account for the slower adjustment to changes in the cost of capital, I consider a model in which the capital-intensity of production is also costly to adjust. I find that this model can account for the reduced-form effects of both output and the cost of capital on investment.
The Excess Sensitivity of Long-Term Interest Rates: Evidence and Implications for Macroeconomic Models
Authors: Gürkaynak Refet S. , Sack Brian , Swanson Eric T.
Published: August 2019

This paper demonstrates that long-term forward interest rates in the U.S. often react considerably to surprises in macroeconomic data releases and monetary policy announcements. This behavior is inconsistent with the assumption of many macroeconomic models that the long-run properties of the economy are time-invariant and perfectly known by all economic agents. Under those conditions, the shocks we consider would have only transitory effects on short-term interest rates, and hence would not generate large responses in forward rates. Our empirical findings suggest that private agents adjust their expectations of the long-run inflation rate in response to macroeconomic and monetary policy surprises. Consistent with our hypothesis, forward rates derived from inflation-indexed Treasury debt show little sensitivity to these shocks, indicating that the response of nominal forward rates is mostly driven by inflation compensation. In addition, we find that in the U.K., where the long-run inflation target is known by the private sector, long-term forward rates have not demonstrated excess sensitivity since the Bank of England achieved independence in mid-1997. We present an alternative model in which agents' perceptions of long-run inflation are not completely anchored, which fits all of our empirical results.
Calculating and Using Second Order Accurate Solutions of Discrete Time Dynamic Equilibrium Models
Authors: Kim Jinill , Kim Sunghyun H. , Schaumburg Ernst , Sims Christopher A.
Published: August 2019

We describe an algorithm for calculating second order approximations to the solutions to nonlinear stochastic rational expectation models. The paper also explains methods for using such an approximate solution to generate forecasts, simulated time paths for the model, and evaluations of expected welfare differences across different versions of a model. The paper gives conditions for local validity of the approximation that allow for disturbance distributions with unbounded support and allow for non-stationarity of the solution process.
A Utility-Based Welfare Criterion in a Model with Endogenous Capital Accumulation
Authors: Edge Rochelle M.
Published: August 2019

This paper extends the utility-based welfare criterion developed by Rotemberg and Woodford (1997) and Woodford (2003) to a model with endogenous capital accumulation. The welfare criterion obtained for this model shares several features with the corresponding expressions that have been derived in simpler models without capital accumulation. In particular, a criterion can be specified such that welfare losses depend solely on quadratic functions of the model's variables, thus confirming that policy should be oriented toward stabilization of macroeconomic aggregates, rather than toward attaining particular levels of those aggregates. That said, an important difference that obtains in this case is that the composition of output directly affects welfare in the endogenous-capital model--a result that is not present in standard treatments.
Optimal Monetary Policy in a Micro-founded Model with Parameter Uncertainty
Authors: Kimura Takeshi , Kurozumi Takushi
Published: August 2019

In this paper, we structurally model uncertainty with a micro-founded model, and investigate its implications for optimal monetary policy. Uncertainty about deep parameters of the model implies that the central bank simultaneously faces both uncertainty about the structural dynamic equations and about the social loss function. Considering both uncertainties with cross-parameter restrictions based on the micro-foundations of the model, we use Bayesian methods to determine the optimal monetary policy that minimizes the expected loss. Our analysis shows how uncertainty can lead the central bank to pursue a more aggressive monetary policy, overturning Brainard's common wisdom. As the degree of uncertainty about inflation dynamics increases, the central bank should place much more weight on price stability, and should respond to shocks more aggressively. In addition, when the central bank is uncertain about output dynamics, an aggressive policy response can be justified by the positive correlation between policy multiplier and transmission of natural rate of interest shock as well as the effect of loss-function uncertainty. We also show that combining a more aggressive policy response with a highly inertial interest rate policy reduces Bayesian risk.
Federal Reserve Transparency and Financial Market Forecasts of Short-Term Interest Rates
Authors: Swanson Eric T.
Published: August 2019

The 1990s and early 2000s witnessed an unprecedented increase in central bank transparency around the world, yet there has been little empirical work that convincingly demonstrates any economic benefits of increased central bank transparency. This paper shows that, since the late 1980s, U.S, financial markets and private sector forecasters have become: 1) better able to forecast the federal funds rate at horizons out to several months, 2) less surprised by Federal Reserve announcements, 3) more certain of their interest rate forecasts ex ante, as measured by interest rate options, and 4) less diverse in the cross-sectional variety of their interest rate forecasts. We also show that increases in Federal Reserve transparency are likely to have played a role: for example, private sector forecasts of GDP and inflation have not experienced similar improvements over the same period, indicating that the improvement in interest rate forecasts has been special.
Valuation, Investment and the Pure Profit Share
Authors: Lafourcade Pierre
Published: August 2019

This paper explores some implications for valuation and investment of challenging the standard assumption that there are no aggregate pure profits in the US economy. First, it highlights the theoretical importance of monopoly rents for fluctuations in average Q. A series for such rents is then computed by assuming that production is Cobb-Douglas, as fluctuations in the output share of pure profits may be inferred from variations in the labor share. Consequently, the paper focuses on the correlation between a measure of rents and observable average Q. It also reassesses the empirical disconnection between investment and a measure of marginal q purged of monopoly rents. The paper finds that the existence of pure profits as constructed from unit labor costs only accounts for about 5% of fluctuations in observed Q, and alters only minimally the empirical relationship between q and investment.
Identifying Price Discrimination When Product Menus are Endogenous
Authors: Cohen Andrew M.
Published: August 2019

The standard approach to identifying second degree price discrimination is based on examining correlations between product menus and prices. When product menus are endogenous, however, tests for price discrimination may be biased by the fact that unobservables affecting costs or demand may jointly determine product menus and prices leading one to falsely infer price discrimination. Attempts to correct for this potential bias using observed product characteristics or fixed effects are shown to potentially confound inference on price discrimination leading one to reject it when firms are actually price discriminating. I propose a difference in differences type test that exploits the potential correlation between unobserved product attributes, product menus, and prices.
What Explains the Stock Market's Reaction to Federal Reserve Policy?
Authors: Bernanke Ben , Kuttner Kenneth N.
Published: August 2019

This paper analyzes the impact of changes in monetary policy on equity prices, with the objectives both of measuring the average reaction of the stock market and also of understanding the economic sources of that reaction. We find that, on average, a hypothetical unanticipated 25-basis-point cut in the federal funds rate target is associated with about a one percent increase in broad stock indexes. Adapting a methodology due to Campbell (1991) and Campbell and Ammer (1993), we find that the effects of unanticipated monetary policy actions on expected excess returns account for the largest part of the response of stock prices.
Cross-Border Diversification in Bank Asset Portfolios
Authors: Buch Claudia M. , Driscoll John C. , Ostergaard Charlotte
Published: August 2019

Taking the mean-variance portfolio model as a benchmark, we compute the optimally diversified portfolio for banks located in France, Germany, the U.K., and the U.S. under different assumptions about currency hedging. We compare these optimal portfolios to the actual cross-border assets of banks from 1995-1999 and try to explain the deviations. We find that banks over-invest domestically to a considerable extent and that cross-border diversification entails considerable gain. Banks underweight countries which are culturally less similar or have capital controls in place. Capital controls have a strong impact on the degree of underinvestment whereas less political risk increases the degree of over-investment.
Fresh Start or Head Start? The Effect of Filing for Personal Bankruptcy on the Labor Supply
Authors: Han Song , Li Wenli
Published: August 2019

The key feature of the modern U.S. personal bankruptcy law is to provide debtors a financial fresh start through debt discharge. The primary justification for the discharge policy is to preserve human capital by maintaining incentives for work. In this paper, we test this fresh start argument by providing the first estimate of the effect of personal bankruptcy filing on the labor supply using data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID). Our econometric approach controls for the endogenous self-selection of bankruptcy filing and allows for dependence over time for the same household. We find that filing for bankruptcy does not have a positive impact on annual hours worked by bankrupt households, a result mainly due to the wealth effects of debt discharge. The finding is robust to a number of alternative model specifications and sample selections. Therefore, our analysis does not find supporting evidence for the human capital argument for bankruptcy discharge.
Transparency and Monetary Policy: What Does the Academic Literature Tell Policymakers?
Authors: Carpenter Seth B.
Published: August 2019

Transparency in monetary policy has become a popular topic over the past decade. However, the majority of the economic research is theoretical, calling into question its value as a practical guide to monetary policy. This paper surveys the literature to assess what conclusions a central bank can draw from the academic study of transparency and how beneficial transparency may be.