bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The Automatic Stabilizers: Quietly Doing Their Thing
Authors: Cohen Darrel , Follette Glenn
Published: August 2019

This paper presents theoretical and empirical analysis of automatic fiscal stabilizers, such as the income tax and unemployment insurance benefits. Using the modern theory of consumption behavior, we identify several channels--insurance effects, wealth effects and liquidity constraints- -through which the optimal reaction of household consumption plans to aggregate income shocks is tempered by the automatic fiscal stabilizers. In addition we identify a cash flow channel for investment. The empirical importance of automatic stabilizers is addressed in several ways. We estimate elasticities of the various federal taxes with respect to their tax bases and responses of certain components of federal spending to changes in the unemployment rate. Such estimates are useful for analysts who forecast federal revenues and spending; the estimates also allow high- employment or cyclically-adjusted federal tax receipts and expenditures to be estimated. Using frequency domain techniques, we confirm that the relationships found in the time domain are strong at the business cycle frequencies. Using the FRB/US macro-econometric model of the United States economy, the automatic fiscal stabilizers are found to play a modest role at damping the short-run effect of aggregate demand shocks on real GDP, reducing the "multiplier" by about 10 percent. Very little stabilization is provided in the case of an aggregate supply shock.
Should America Save for its Old Age? Population Aging, National Saving, and Fiscal Policy
Authors: Elmendorf Douglas W. , Sheiner Louise
Published: August 2019

While popular wisdom holds that the United States should save more now in anticipation of the aging of the baby boom generation, the optimal response to population aging from a macroeconomic perspective is not clear-cut. Indeed, Cutler, Poterba, Sheiner, and Summers ("CPSS",1990) argued that the optimal response to the coming demographic transition was more likely to be a reduction in national saving than an increase. In this paper we reexamine this question. In particular, we ask how the optimal saving response depends on the openness of our economy, on how we view the consumption of children, and on the existence of pay-as-you-go transfer programs like Social Security and Medicare. We find that, if the United States were a small open economy and world interest rates were fixed at their current level, the desire to smooth consumption as our population aged would lead us to increase saving today. But the optimal response in a closed economy is much less clear-cut, as slower growth of the labor force will push down the rate of return on capita l and diminish desired saving. For reasonable parameters, the optimal response to our aging population in a closed economy is likely to be small--either a small decline in national saving or a small increase. We also explore the role of the government in population aging. Government programs can influence consumption if they affect the capital-labor ratio or the relative weight that society places on the consumption of the elderly.
Stock Prices and Fundamentals in a Production Economy
Authors: Kiley Michael T.
Published: August 2019

This paper compares the predictions for the market value of firms from the Gordon growth model with those from a dynamic general equilibrium model of production. The predictions for movements in the market value of firms in response to a decline in the required return or an increase in the growth rate of the economy are quantitatively and qualitatively different across the models. While previous research has illustrated how a drop in the required return or an increase in the growth rate of the economy can explain the runup in equity values in the 1990s in the Gordon growth model, the consideration of production overturns these results and illustrates that auxiliary implications of such shifts in fundamentals, such as a sharp increase in the investment intensity of the economy, are not supported by the data in the late 1990s. This tension between theory and data suggests that the skyrocketing market value of firms in the second half of the 1990s may reflect a degree of irrational exuberance.
Anatomy of a Fair Lending Exam: The Uses and Limitations of Statistics
Authors: Calem Paul S. , Longhofer Stanley D.
Published: August 2019

In this paper, we consider the role of statistical analysis in fair lending compliance examinations. We present a case study of an actual examination of a large mortgage lender, demonstrating how statistical techniques can be a valuable tool focusing examiner efforts to either uncover illegal discrimination or exonerate an institution so accused. Importantly, our case also highlights the limitations of such statistical techniques. The study suggests that statistical analysis combined with comparative file review offers a balanced and thorough approach to enforcement of fair lending laws.
Heterogeneous Forecasts and Aggregate Dynamics
Authors: Bomfim Antulio N.
Published: August 2019

Motivated by issues raised in both the finance and economics literatures, I construct a dynamic general equilibrium model where agents use differing degrees of sophistication when forecasting future economic conditions. All agents solve standard dynamic optimization problems and face strategic complementarity in production, but some solve their inference problems based on simple forecasting rules of thumb. Assuming a hierarchical information structure similar to the one in Townsend's (1983) model of informationally dispersed markets, I show that even a minority of rule-of-thumb forecasters can have a significant effect on the aggregate properties of the economy. For instance, as agents try to forecast each others' behavior they effectively strengthen the internal propagation mechanism of the economy. The quantitative results are obtained by calibrating the model and running a battery of sensitivity tests on key parameters. The analysis highlights the role of strategic complementarity in the heterogeneous expectations literature and quantifies many qualitative claims about the aggregate implications of expectational heterogeneity.
Do Firms Share Their Success with Workers? The Response of Wages to Product Market Conditions
Authors: Estevao Marcello M. , Tevlin Stacey
Published: August 2019

We provide strong new evidence that industry financial conditions play an important role in wage determination in the U.S. manufacturing sector. Ordinary least squares estimates of the effect of rents per worker on wages are positive and significant, but quite small. However, using two standard bargaining models, we illustrate that this may stem from a variety of econometric difficulties that plague the OLS estimates. In this paper, we are able to overcome these issues and identify the effects of the industry financial situation on wages. We do this using the U.S. input-output tables to isolate exogenous variation in an industry's product market conditions. Our instrumental variable estimates reveal a substantial amount of rent sharing in U.S. manufacturing--much more than is consistent with a purely competitive labor market.
Does Multinationality Matter? Evidence of Value Destruction in U.S. Multinational Corporations
Authors: Click Reid W. , Harrison Paul
Published: August 2019

We document that capital markets penalize corporate multinationality by putting a lower value on the equity of multinational corporations than on otherwise similar domestic corporations. Using Tobin's q, the multinational discount is estimated to be in the range of 8.6% to 17.1%. The most important mechanism of value destruction is an asset channel in which multinationals have disproportionately high levels of assets in relation to the earnings they generate. Foreign assets are particularly associated with value destruction. In contrast, exporting from U.S. operations is associated with an export premium -- of approximately 3.9% -- resulting from both a higher market value and a lower asset size. Given these findings, we ask why firms become multinationals. Evidence reveals that the portion of a firm owned by management is inversely related to the likelihood that the firm is a multinational, so we conclude that managers who do not own much of the firm may be building multinational empires for private gains at the expense of the shareholders.
Microeconomic Inventory Adjustment: Evidence From U.S. Firm-Level Data
Authors: Zakrajšek Egon , McCarthy Jonathan
Published: August 2019

We examine inventory adjustment in the U.S. manufacturing sector using quarterly firm-level data over the period 1978-97. Our evidence indicates that the inventory investment process is nonlinear and asymmetric, results consistent with a nonconvex adjustment cost structure. The inventory adjustment process differs over the business cycle: for a given level of excess inventories, firms disinvest more in recessions than they do in expansions. The inventory adjustment process has changed little between the 1980s and 1990s, suggesting that recent advances in inventory control have had little effect on adjustment costs. Nevertheless, the optimal inventory-sales ratio in the durable goods sector has declined significantly during our sample period.
Has Compensation Become More Flexible?
Authors: Cannon Sandra A. , Fallick Bruce , Lettau Michael K. , Molloy Raven Saks
Published: August 2019

In recent years, numerous observers have argued that global competition, increased reliance on contingent workers, and the breakdown of implicit contracts have made compensation practices in the United States more flexible; in particular, employers have become more concerned with how an employee's pay compares to that in other firms and less concerned with considerations of equity or relative pay within the firm. This paper uses establishment-level data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Employment Cost Index program to examine this claim by asking whether the variances of compensation within and between establishments have moved in a more "flexible" direction over the 1980s and 1990s. We find evidence consistent with increased flexibility.
Deriving Inflation Expectations from Nominal and Inflation-Indexed Treasury Yields
Authors: Sack Brian
Published: August 2019

This paper derives a measure of inflation compensation from the yields of a Treasury inflation-indexed security and a portfolio of STRIPS that has similar liquidity and duration as the indexed security. This measure can be used as a proxy for inflation expectations if the inflation risk premium is small. The calculated measure suggests that the rate of inflation expected over the next ten years fell from just under 3% in mid-1997 to just under 1 3/4% by early 1999, before rising back to about 2 1/2% by the beginning of 2000. This variation is more extensive than would have been expected from a simple model of inflation dynamics or from a survey measure of long-run inflation expectations.
The Integration of the Financial Services Industry: Where are the Efficiencies?
Authors: Berger Allen N.
Published: August 2019

We examine the efficiency effects of the integration of the financial services industry and suggest directions for future research. We also propose a relatively broad working definition of integration and employ U.S. and European data on financial service industry M&As; to illustrate several types of integration. The analysis suggests that there is a large potential for efficiency gains from integration, but only a relatively small part of this potential may be realized. Integration appears to bring about larger revenue efficiency gains than cost efficiency gains, and most of the gains appear to be linked to benefits from risk diversification.
Do Minimum Wages Raise the NAIRU?
Authors: Tulip Peter
Published: August 2019

A high minimum wage (relative to average wages) raises nominal wage growth and hence inflation. This effect can be offset by extra unemployment; so the minimum wage increases the Non-Accelerating Inflation Rate of Unemployment or NAIRU. This effect is clearly discernible and robust to variations in model specification and sample period. It is consistent with international comparisons and the behavior of prices. I estimate that the reduction in the relative level of the minimum wage over the last two decades accounts for a reduction in the NAIRU of about 1 1/2 percentage points. It can also account for the substantial reduction in the NAIRU in the United States relative to continental Europe.
Testing for Market Discipline in the European Banking Industry: Evidence from Subordinated Debt Issues
Authors: Sironi Andrea
Published: August 2019

The question of whether private investors can rationally discriminate between the risk taken by banks is empirically investigated by testing the risk sensitivity of European banks' subordinated notes and debentures (SND) spreads. A unique dataset of issuance spreads, issues and issuers rating, accounting and market measures of bank risk is used for a sample of European banks' SND issued during the 1991-2000:Q1 period. Moody's Bank Financial Strength (MBFS) and FitchIBCA Individual (FII) ratings are used as proxies of banks risk and found to perform better than accounting variables in explaining the cross-sectional variability of spreads. Empirical results support the hypothesis that SND investors are sensitive to bank risk. An exception to this conclusion is represented by SND issued by public banks, i.e. government owned or guaranteed institutions such as the German Landesbank. Results also show that market discipline on European banks has been improving during the nineties, with the risk sensitivity of SND spreads increasing from the first to the second half of the decade.
An Analysis of European Banks SND Issues and Its Implications for the Design of a Mandatory Subordinated Debt Policy
Authors: Sironi Andrea
Published: August 2019

During the last twenty years an increasing number of proposals to improve bank market discipline through the introduction of a mandatory subordinated debt policy have been drafted and critically discussed by academic economists and bank regulators. While theoretical issues are key in this debate, a proper understanding of the market of banks' subordinated notes and debentures (SND) and of the securities main features is also considered as relevant for the potential introduction, design, and goals setting of such a policy. This paper builds on information concerning issuers, investors, markets, and securities technical features to critically discuss these aspects. Data on over 1,800 European banks' SND issues completed during the 1988-2000 period together with information on primary and secondary market functioning is presented.
Using Treasury STRIPS to Measure the Yield Curve
Authors: Sack Brian
Published: August 2019

Treasury STRIPS derived from coupon payments of notes and bonds provide an effective reading of the zero-coupon yield curve. Among their advantages, coupon STRIPS are zero-coupon securities, have a complete range of maturities, and are fungible, which appears to make the coupon STRIPS yield curve relatively smooth. Yields on coupon STRIPS are compared to the zero-coupon yield curves derived from notes and bonds under the Nelson-Siegel and the Fisher-Nychka-Zervos methods. The results point to some shortcomings of these approaches and indicate that the zero-coupon yield curve could be estimated more precisely from coupon STRIPS.
Credit Scoring and Mortgage Securitization: Do They Lower Mortgage Rates?
Authors: Heuson Andrea Jane , Passmore Wayne , Sparks Roger
Published: August 2019

This paper develops a model of the interactions between borrowers, originators, and a securitizer in primary and secondary mortgage markets. In the secondary market, the securitizer adds liquidity and plays a strategic game with mortgage originators. The securitizer sets the price at which it will purchase mortgages and the credit score standard that qualifies a mortgage for purchase. We investigate two potential links between securitization and mortgage rates. First, we analyze whether a portion of the liquidity premium gets passed on to borrowers in the form of a lower mortgage rate. Somewhat surpringly, we find plausible conditions under which securization fails to lower the mortgage rate. Secondly, and consistent with recent empirical results, we derive an inverse correlation between the volume of securitization and mortgage rates. However, the causation is reversed from the standard rendering. In our model, a decline in the mortgage rate causes increased securitization rather than the other way around.
A Study of the Finite Sample Properties of EMM, GMM, QMLE, and MLE for a Square-Root Interest Rate Diffusion Model
Authors: Zhou Hao
Published: August 2019

This paper performs a Monte Carlo study on Efficient Method of Moments (EMM), Generalized Method of Moments (GMM), Quasi-Maximum Likelihood Estimation (QMLE), and Maximum Likelihood Estimation (MLE) for a continuous-time square-root model under two challenging scenarios--high persistence in mean and strong conditional volatility--that are commonly found in estimating the interest rate process. MLE turns out to be the most efficient of the four methods, but its finite sample inference and convergence rate suffer severely from approximating the likelihood function, especially in the scenario of highly persistent mean. QMLE comes second in terms of estimation efficiency, but it is the most reliable in generating inferences. GMM with lag-augmented moments has overall the lowest estimation efficiency, possibly due to the ad hoc choice of moment conditions. EMM shows an accelerated convergence rate in the high volatility scenario, while its overrejection bias in the mean persistence scenario is unacceptably large. Finally, under a stylized alternative model of the US interest rates, the overidentification test of EMM obtains the ultimate power for detecting misspecification, while the GMM J-test is increasingly biased downward in finite samples.
Estimating the Value and Interest Rate Risk of Interest-Bearing Transactions Deposits
Authors: O'Brien James M.
Published: August 2019

A valuation model is developed within an interest rate contingent claims framework to estimate NOW account and MMDA premiums and interest rate risk for a sample of commercial banks. As has been previously done, bank deposit rate and balances dynamics are represented by autoregressive processes but with attention given here to alternative specifications and to the deposit rent processes and dynamics implied by these specifications. Alternative deposit rate specifications studied include asymmetric adjustment to market rate changes. In examining the implied deposit rent processes, special attention is given to the importance of distant rent forecasts and forecast dynamics for the deposit premium and interest rate risk estimates.
The Effect of Past and Future Economic Fundamentals on Spending and Pricing Behavior in the FRB/US Macroeconomic Model
Authors: Von zur Muehlen P.
Published: August 2019

This paper derives and presents mean leads and lags as well as patterns of relative importance weights implied by the PAC (polynomial-adjustment-cost) error-correction equations which form the core of the FRB/US model at the Federal Reserve Board. Relative importance weights measure the contributions of past and future expected changes in fundamentals on current decisions. These and the associated mean lags and leads can be considered summary measures of key dynamic properties of FRB/US. The spending equations are those for total consumption, durables consumption, business equipment, residential housing, and private inventories. The pricing equations are those for the price level and wage growth. In addition FRB/US has one PAC equation for dividends and one for labor hours.
How Well Does the New Keynesian Sticky-Price Model Fit the Data?
Authors: Roberts John M.
Published: August 2019

The New Keynesian sticky-price model has become increasingly popular for monetary-policy analysis. However, there have been conflicting results on the empirical performance of the model. In this paper, I attempt to reconcile these conflicting claims by examining various specifications of the model within the context of a single framework. I find that the New Keynesian model does not fit the U.S. data well; in particular, the model requires additional lags of inflation not implied by the model under rational expectations. These additional lags have the interpretation that some fraction of the population uses a simple univariate rule for forecasting inflation.
Measuring the Reaction of Monetary Policy to the Stock Market
Authors: Rigobon Roberto , Sack Brian
Published: August 2019

Movements in the stock market can have a significant impact on the macroeconomy and are therefore likely to be an important factor in the determination of monetary policy. However, little is known about the magnitude of the Federal Reserve's reaction to the stock market. One reason is that it is difficult to estimate the policy reaction because of the simultaneous response of equity prices to interest rate changes. This paper uses an identification technique based on the heteroskedasticity of stock market returns to identify the reaction of monetary policy to the stock market. The results indicate that monetary policy reacts significantly to stock market movements, with a 5% rise (fall) in the S&P; 500 index increasing the likelihood of a 25 basis point tightening (easing) by about a half. This reaction is roughly of the magnitude that would be expected from estimates of the impact of stock market movements on aggregate demand. Thus, it appears that the Federal Reserve systematically responds to stock price movements only to the extent warranted by their impact on the macroeconomy.
Market Definition in Banking: Recent Evidence
Authors: Amel Dean F. , Starr-McCluer Martha
Published: August 2019

Antitrust analysis of bank mergers defines banking markets to be geographically local and to consist of the cluster of financial products supplied by commercial banks. This definition is based on assumptions about households' and small businesses' behavior in purchasing banking services. This article utilizes data from the Survey of Consumer Finances to examine how households' use of financial services and institutions changed between 1989 and 1998. We investigate the extent to which households still focus their purchases of financial services at local depository institutions, as opposed to non-depository or distant institutions, and examine the extent to which purchases are clustered at a single institution. Overall, the results indicate that households continue, to a substantial degree, to obtain certain key asset services, notably checking accounts, at local depository institutions.
The Hidden Dangers of Historical Simulation
Authors: Passmore Wayne , Sparks Roger , Ingpen Jamie
Published: August 2019

Many large financial institutions compute the Value-at-Risk (VaR) of their trading portfolios using historical simulation based methods, but the methods' properties are not well understood. This paper theoretically and empirically examines the historical simulation method, a variant of historical simulation introduced by Boudoukh, Richardson and Whitelaw (1998) (BRW), and the Filtered Historical Simulation method (FHS) of Barone-Adesi, Giannopoulos, and Vosper (1999). The Historical Simulation and BRW methods are both under-responsive to changes in conditional risk; and respond to changes in risk in an asymmetric fashion: measured risk increases when the portfolio experiences large losses, but not when it earns large gains. The FHS method appears promising, but requires additional refinement to account for time-varying correlations; and to choose the appropriate length of historical sample period. Preliminary analysis suggests that 2 years of daily data may not contain enough extreme outliers to accurately compute 1% VaR at a 10-day horizon using the FHS method.
How Accurate are Value-at-Risk Models at Commercial Banks?
Authors: Berkowitz Jeremy , O'Brien James M.
Published: August 2019

In recent years, the trading accounts at large commercial banks have grown substantially and become progressively more diverse and complex. We provide descriptive statistics on the trading revenues from such activities and on the associated Value-at-Risk forecasts internally estimated by banks. For a sample of large bank holding companies, we evaluate the performance of banks' trading risk models by examining the statistical accuracy of the VaR forecasts. Although a substantial literature has examined the statistical and economic meaning of Value-at-Risk models, this article is the first to provide a detailed analysis of the performance of models actually in use.
Systematic Risk and Financial Consolidation: Are They Related?
Authors: De Nicolo Gianni , Kwast Myron L.
Published: August 2019

The creation of a number of very large and sometimes increasingly complex financial institutions, resulting in part from the on-going consolidation of the financial system, has raised concerns that the degree of systemic risk in the financial system may have increased. We argue that firm interdependencies, as measured by correlations of stock returns, provide an indicator of systemic risk potential. We analyze the dynamics of the stock return correlations of a sample of U.S. large and complex banking organizations (LCBOs) over 1988-1999, and find a significant positive trend in stock return correlations. In addition, we relate firms' return correlations to their consolidation activity. Consolidation at the sample LCBOs appears to have contributed to LCBOs interdependencies. However, consolidation elasticities of correlation exhibit substantial time variation, and likely declined in the latter part of the decade. Thus, factors other than consolidation have also been responsible for the upward trend in return correlations.
The Effects of Dynamic Changes in Bank Competition on the Supply of Small Business Credit
Authors: Berger Allen N. , Goldberg Lawrence G. , White Lawrence J.
Published: August 2019

We study the effects of structural changes in banking markets on the supply of credit to small businesses. Specifically, we examine whether bank mergers and acquisitions (M&As;) and entry have "external" effects on small business loans by other banks in the same local markets. The results suggest modest positive external effects from these dynamic changes in competition, except that large banks may reduce small business lending in reaction to entry. We confirm bank size and age as important determinants of this lending, and show that the measured age effect does not appear to be driven by local market M&A; activity.
The Performance of Forecast-Based Monetary Policy Rules Under Model Uncertainty
Authors: Wieland Volker W. , Levin Andrew , Williams John C.
Published: August 2019

We investigate the performance of forecast-based monetary policy rules using five macroeconomic models that reflect a wide range of views on aggregate dynamics. We identify the key characteristics of rules that are robust to model uncertainty: such rules respond to the one-year ahead inflation forecast and to the current output gap, and incorporate a substantial degree of policy inertia. In contrast, rules with longer forecast horizons are less robust and are prone to generating indeterminacy. In light of these results, we identify a robust benchmark rule that performs very well in all five models over a wide range of policy preferences.
The Competitive Implications of Multimarket Bank Branching
Authors: Hannan Timothy H. , Prager Robin A.
Published: August 2019

Regulators and research economists typically view retail banking markets as locally limited, spanning an area that can often be approximated by a metropolitan area or a rural county. Banks are assumed to set retail prices based on the conditions of supply and demand prevailing within these local market areas. However, recent studies have found evidence that large, multimarket banking organizations tend to offer uniform interest rates for retail deposit accounts of a particular type throughout the area that they serve, at least within a given state. This uniform pricing phenomenon raises questions about the continued relevance of the concept of local banking markets for both research and antitrust purposes. We address this issue by developing and empirically testing a model to determine the effects of the presence of multimarket banks in a local geographic market on the deposit interest rates offered by single-market banks serving that same local market.
Estimating Stochastic Volatility Diffusion Using Conditional Moments of Integrated Volatility
Authors: Bollerslev Tim , Zhou Hao
Published: August 2019

We exploit the distributional information contained in high-frequency intraday data in constructing a simple conditional moment estimator for stochastic volatility diffusions. The estimator is based on the analytical solutions of the first two conditional moments for the latent integrated volatility, the realization of which is effectively approximated by the sum of the squared high-frequency increments of the process. Our simulation evidence indicates that the resulting GMM estimator is highly reliable and accurate. Our empirical implementation based on high-frequency five-minute foreign exchange returns suggests the presence of multiple latent stochastic volatility factors and possible jumps.
Implications of Habit Formation for Optimal Monetary Policy
Authors: Amato Jeffery D. , Laubach Thomas
Published: August 2019

We study the implications for optimal monetary policy of introducing habit formation in consumption into a general equilibrium model with sticky prices. Habit formation affects the model's endogenous dynamics through its effects on both aggregate demand and households' supply of output. We show that the objective of monetary policy consistent with welfare maximization includes output stabilization, as well as inflation and output gap stabilization. We find that the variance of output increases under optimal policy, even though it acquires a higher implicit weight in the welfare function. We also find that a simple interest rate rule nearly achieves the welfare-optimal allocation, regardless of the degree of habit formation. In this rule, the optimal responses to inflation and the lagged interest rate are both declining in the size of the habit, although super-inertial policies remain optimal.
Linear Data Transformations Used in Economics
Authors: Cohen Darrel
Published: August 2019

The paper examines the properties of standard data transformations--such as growth rates and moving averages--used by applied economists. Because many resources are devoted to understanding the economic significance of incoming data by government and financial-market economists, for example, this paper considers data filters that do not drop recent observations, in contrast to the approximately "ideal" measures recently developed in the literature. Using frequency-domain techniques, it is established that moving averages of multi-period growth rates can attenuate the bias and phase shifts introduced by common data filters.
The Effect of Market Size Structure on Competition: The Case of Small Business Lending
Authors: Berger Allen N. , Rosen Richard J. , Udell Gregory F.
Published: August 2019

Banking industry consolidation has raised concern about the supply of small business credit since large banks generally invest lower proportions of their assets in small business loans. However, we find that the likelihood that a small business borrows from a bank of a given size is roughly proportional to the local market presence of banks of that size, although there are exceptions. Moreover, small business loan interest rates depend more on the size structure of the market than on the size of the bank providing the credit, with markets dominated by large banks generally charging lower prices.
Monetary Policy Rules and the Great Inflation
Authors: Orphanides Athanasios
Published: August 2019

The nature of monetary policy during the 1970s is evaluated through the lens of a forward-looking Taylor rule based on perceptions regarding the outlook for inflation and unemployment at the time policy decisions were made. The evidence suggests that policy during the 1970s was essentially indistinguishable from a systematic, activist, forward-looking approach such as is often identified with good policy advice in theoretical and econometric policy evaluation research. This points to the unpleasant possibility that the policy errors of the 1970s occurred despite the use of a seemingly desirable policy approach. Though the resulting activist policies could have appeared highly promising, they proved, in retrospect, counterproductive.
Avoiding Nash Inflation: Bayesian and Robust Responses to Model Uncertainty
Authors: Tetlow Robert , Von zur Muehlen P.
Published: August 2019

We examine learning, model misspecification, and robust policy responses to misspecification in a quasi-real-time environment. The laboratory for the analysis is the Sargent (1999) explanation for the origins of inflation in the 1970s and the subsequent disinflation. Three robust policy rules are derived that differ according to the extent that misspecification is taken as a parametric phenomenon. These responses to drifting estimated parameters and apparent misspecification are compared to the certainty-equivalent case studied by Sargent. We find gains from utilizing robust approaches to monetary policy design, but only when the approach to robustness is carefully tailored to the problem at hand. In the least parametric approach, the medicine of robust control turns out to be too potent for the disease of misspecification. In the most parametric approach, the response to misspecification is too weak and too misdirected to be of help. But when the robust approach to policy is narrowly directed in the correct location, it can avoid Nash inflation and improve social welfare. It follows that agnosticism regarding the sources of misspecification has its pitfalls. We also find that Sargent?s story for the rise of inflation of the 1970s and its subsequent decline in the 1980s is robust to most ways of relaxing a strong assumption in the original work.
Price Measures for Semiconductor Devices
Authors: Aizcorbe Ana M.
Published: August 2019

This note provides quality-adjusted price indexes and nominal shipments data for highly disaggregate classes of semiconductor devices. These data may be used to construct indexes under different assumptions from those used in indexes that are currently available. Because the construction of these building blocks require some assumptions, the indexes are compared with similar price measures constructed by Bruce Grimm (1998) and by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Does the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) Cause Banks to Provide a Subsidy to Some Mortgage Borrowers?
Authors: Canner Glenn B. , Laderman Elizabeth , Lehnert Andreas , Passmore Wayne
Published: August 2019

The Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) encourages lenders to make mortgage loans to certain classes of borrowers. However, the law does not apply to all lenders, and lenders do not necessarily receive credit for all loans made to borrowers of a particular class. We use this variation to test whether or not CRA-affected lenders cut interest rates to CRA-eligible borrowers; in other words, we test for the presence of a regulation-driven subsidy. Our theory suggests that loans made by commercial banks and savings associations ("relationship lenders") and mortgage companies ("transaction lenders") will differ from one another depending on borrower risk and homeownership benefits. Empirically, we find that CRA-eligible loans at CRA-affected institutions do carry lower mortgage spreads compared with other loans at the same institution. However, once we control for risk and benefit effects suggested by our theory, these differences in mortgage spreads become economically and statistically insignificant.
Increasing Returns and Optimal Oscillating Labor Supply
Authors: Dupor Bill , Lehnert Andreas
Published: August 2019

Models featuring increasing returns to scale in at least one factor of production have been used to study two separate phenomena: (1) multiplicity of self-fulfilling rational expectations equilibria (i.e. sunspots), and (2) production schedules that optimally feature bunching. We show in a continuous-time model with increasing returns to labor (IRL) that if the economy features multiple competitive equilibria, the optimal path of investment, employment and consumption cannot be constant, or even smoothly-varying. Any macroeconomic policies that shielded the economy from sunspot fluctuations would necessarily not be optimal. We then characterize the optimal allocation (the solution to the planner's problem) in a discrete time version of the model. We find that the optimal investment, employment and consumption policies under increasing returns can feature (1) discontinuous jumps, (2) endogenous cycles (with time-varying cycle limits) and (3) stochastic controls (lotteries). Our discrete-time model is very close to that studied by Christiano and Harrison (1999); they, however find that fluctuations are not optimal. We show that this difference is driven by their assumption that production is linear in capital.
Credit Scoring and the Availability, Price, and Risk of Small Business Credit
Authors: Berger Allen N. , Frame W. Scott , Miller Nathan H.
Published: August 2019

We examine the economic effects of small business credit scoring (SBCS) and find that it is associated with expanded quantities, higher average prices, and greater risk levels for small business credits under $100,000. These findings are consistent with a net increase in lending to relatively risky "marginal borrowers" that would otherwise not receive credit, but pay relatively high prices when they are funded. We also find that: 1) bank-specific and industrywide learning curves are important; 2) SBCS effects differ for banks that adhere to "rules" versus "discretion" in using the technology; and 3) SBCS effects differ for slightly larger credits.
Imperfect Knowledge, Inflation Expectations, and Monetary Policy
Authors: Orphanides Athanasios , Williams John C.
Published: August 2019

This paper investigates the role of imperfect knowledge regarding the structure of the economy on the formation of expectations, macroeconomic dynamics, and the efficient formulation of monetary policy. Economic agents rely on an adaptive learning technology to form expectations and continuously update their beliefs regarding the dynamic structure of the economy based on incoming data. The process of perpetual learning introduces an additional layer of dynamic interactions between monetary policy and economic outcomes. We find that policies that would be efficient under rational expectations can perform poorly when knowledge is imperfect. In particular, policies that fail to maintain tight control over inflation are prone to episodes in which the public's expectations of inflation becomes uncoupled from the policy objective and stagflation results, in a pattern similar to that experienced in the United States during the 1970s. More generally, we show that in the presence of imperfect knowledge, policy should respond more aggressively to inflation than under perfect knowledge.
Information Technology and Productivity: Where Are We Now and Where Are We Going?
Authors: Sichel Daniel E. , Oliner Stephen D.
Published: August 2019

Productivity growth in the U.S. economy jumped during the second half of the 1990s, a resurgence that many analysts linked to information technology (IT). However, shortly after this consensus emerged, demand for IT products fell sharply, leading to a lively debate about the connection between IT and productivity and about the sustainability of the faster growth. We contribute to this debate in two ways. First, to assess the robustness of the earlier evidence, we extend the growth-accounting results in Oliner and Sichel (2000a) through 2001. The new results confirm the basic story in our earlier work -- that the acceleration in labor productivity after 1995 was driven largely by the greater use of IT capital goods and by the more rapid efficiency gains in the production of IT goods. Second, to assess whether the pickup in productivity growth is sustainable, we analyze the steady-state properties of a multi-sector growth model. This exercise generates a range for labor productivity growth of 2 percent to 2-3/4 percent per year, which suggests that much -- and possibly all -- of the resurgence is sustainable.
Does the Labor Share of Income Drive Inflation?
Authors: Rudd Jeremy Bay , Whelan Karl
Published: August 2019

Woodford (2001) has presented evidence that the new-Keynesian Phillips curve fits the empirical behavior of inflation well when the labor income share is used as a driving variable, but fits poorly when deterministically detrended output is used. He concludes that the output gap--the deviation between actual and potential output--is better captured by the labor income share, in turn implying that central banks should raise interest rates in response to increases in the labor share. We show that the empirical evidence generally suggests that the labor share version of the new-Keynesian Phillips curve is a very poor model of price inflation. We conclude that there is little reason to view the labor income share as a good measure of the output gap, or as an appropriate variable for incorporation in a monetary policy rule.
Nature or Nurture: Why Do 401(k) Participants Save Differently than Other Workers?
Authors: Pence Karen M.
Published: August 2019

Participants in 401(k) plans are more likely than other workers to list &quot;retirement&quot; as their main reason for saving, to hold individual retirement accounts and to invest in the stock market. There are two possible reasons for these differences: (1) workers who like to save choose to participate in the program; or (2) 401(k) participation educates workers about investing. I disentangle these explanations using the 1983-1989 Survey of Consumer Finances. I find that 401(k) participants have a greater interest in saving for retirement than other workers, suggesting that extrapolating from their saving behavior to that of the workforce at large could be misleading. 401(k) participation also appears to increase awareness of retirement saving, but the gains are largest among workers who already prioritize retirement saving.
On the Relationships between Real Consumption, Income, and Wealth
Authors: Palumbo Michael G. , Rudd Jeremy Bay , Whelan Karl
Published: August 2019

The existence of durable goods implies that the welfare flow from consumption cannot be directly associated with total consumption expenditures. As a result, tests of standard theories of consumption (such as the Permanent Income Hypothesis, or PIH) typically focus on nondurable goods and services. Specifically, these studies generally relate real consumption of nondurable goods and services to measures of real income and wealth, where the latter are deflated by a price index for total consumption expenditures. We demonstrate that this procedure is only valid under the assumption that real consumption of nondurables and services is a constant multiple of aggregate real consumption outlays--an assumption that represents a very poor description of U.S. data. We develop an alternative approach that is based on the observation that the ratio of these series has historically been stable in nominal terms, and use this approach to examine two basic predictions of the PIH. We obtain significantly different results relative to the traditional approach.
The Dark Side of Competitive Pressure
Authors: Cummins Jason G. , Nyman Ingmar
Published: August 2019

One of the most basic principles in economics is that competitive pressure promotes efficiency. However, this pressure can also have a dark side because it makes firms reluctant to act on private information that is unpopular with consumers. As a result, firms that possess superior information about the consequences of their actions for consumers' welfare may choose not to use it. We develop this idea in a simple model of delegated investment in which agents are fully rational and risk neutral, and agency problems are absent. We show that competitive pressure obliges firms to make inefficient decisions when their information advantage over consumers is relatively small. This result could be applied to a broad range of economically important situations.
Taxation and the Taylor Principle
Authors: Edge Rochelle M. , Rudd Jeremy Bay
Published: August 2019

We add a nominal tax system to a sticky-price monetary business cycle model. When nominal interest income is taxed, the coefficient on inflation in a Taylor-type monetary policy rule must be significantly larger than one in order for the model economy to have a determinate rational expectations equilibrium. When depreciation is treated as a charge against taxable income, an even larger weight on inflation is required in the Taylor rule in order to obtain a determinate and stable equilibrium. These results have obvious implications for assessing the historical conduct of monetary policy.
Capital Structure and Firm Performance: A New Approach to Testing Agency Theory and an Application to the Banking Industry
Authors: Berger Allen N. , Bonaccorsi di Patti Emilia
Published: August 2019

Corporate governance theory predicts that leverage affects agency costs and thereby influences firm performance. We propose a new approach to test this theory using profit efficiency, or how close a firm's profits are to the benchmark of a best-practice firm facing the same exogenous conditions. We are also the first to employ a simultaneous-equations model that accounts for reverse causality from performance to capital structure. We also control for measures of ownership structure in the tests. We find that data on the U.S. banking industry are consistent with the theory, and the results are statistically significant, economically significant, and robust.
Extracting the Expected Path of Monetary Policy from Futures Rates
Authors: Sack Brian
Published: August 2019

Federal funds and eurodollar futures contracts are among the most useful instruments for deriving expectations of the future path of monetary policy. However, reading policy expectations from those instruments is complicated by the presence of risk premia. This paper demonstrates how to extract the expected policy path under the assumption that risk premia are constant over time, and under a simple model that allows risk premia to vary. In the latter case, the risk premia are identified under the assumption that policy expectations level out after a long enough horizon. The results provide evidence that the risk premia on these futures contracts vary over time. The impact of this variation is fairly limited for futures contracts with short horizons, but it increases as the horizon of the contracts lengthens.
Scale Economies, Scope Economies, and Technical Change in Federal Reserve Payment Processing
Authors: Adams Robert M. , Bauer Paul W. , Sickles Robin
Published: August 2019

In the past decade, the U.S. economy has witnessed a tremendous surge in the usage of electronic payment processing services and an increased importance of the firms that provide these services. The payments industry has also undergone changes in cost structure with the introduction of new technology. Unfortunately, data on the private provision of payment processing services are not available. However, the Federal Reserve provides similar services and collects data on its own provision of payments processing, offering an opportunity to gain insights into the cost structure of payments processing. In this paper, we estimate the scope and scale economies and the technical change in the Federal Reserve&#x27;s provision of payments processing from 1990-2000. We find considerable scale economies and evidence of some scope economies for the provision of automated clearinghouse, Fedwire, and book-entry services no matter whether we specify a separable quadratic or a translog cost function. In addition, we find that disembodied technical change also contributed to the overall reduction in costs throughout the 1990s.