bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Rising Intangible Capital, Shrinking Debt Capacity, and the US Corporate Savings Glut
Authors: Falato Antonio , Kadyrzhanova Dalida , Sim Jae W.
Published: August 2019

This paper explores the hypothesis that the rise in intangible capital is a fundamental driver of the secular trend in US corporate cash holdings over the last decades. Using a new measure,we show that intangible capital is the most important firm-level determinant of corporate cash holdings. Our measure accounts for almost as much of the secular increase in cash since the 1980s as all other determinants together. We then develop a new dynamic model of corporate cash holdings with two types of productive assets, tangible and intangible capital. Since only tangible capital can be pledged as collateral, a shift toward greater reliance on intangible capital shrinks the debt capacity of firms and leads them to optimally hold more cash in order to preserve financial flexibility. In the model, firms with growth options tend to hold more cash in anticipation of (S,s)-type adjustments in physical capital because they want to avoid raising costly external finance. We show that this mechanism is quantitatively important, as our model generates cash holdings that are up to an order of magnitude higher than the standard benchmark and in line with their empirical averages for the last two decades. Overall, our results suggest that technological change has contributed significantly to recent changes in corporate liquidity management.
Equity Market Misvaluation, Financing, and Investment
Authors: Warusawitharana Missaka , Whited Toni M.
Published: August 2019

We quantify how much nonfundamental movements in stock prices affect firm decisions. We estimate a dynamic investment model in which firms can finance with equity or cash (net of debt). Misvaluation affects equity values, and firms optimally issue and repurchase overvalued and undervalued shares. The funds flowing to and from these activities come from either investment, dividends, or net cash. The model fits a broad set of data moments in large heterogeneous samples and across industries. Firms respond to misvaluation by adjusting financing more than by adjusting investment. Managers' rational responses to misvaluation increase shareholder value by up to 8%.
Learning, Rare Disasters, and Asset Prices
Authors: Lu Yang K. , Siemer Michael
Published: August 2019

In this paper, we examine how learning about disaster risk affects asset pricing in an endowment economy. We extend the literature on rare disasters by allowing for two sources of uncertainty: (1) the lack of historical data results in unknown parameters for the disaster process, and (2) the disaster takes time to unfold and is not directly observable. The model generates time variation in the risk premium through Bayesian updating of agents' beliefs regarding the likelihood and severity of disaster realization. The model accounts for the level and volatility of U.S. equity returns and generates predictability in returns.
Declining Labor Force Attachment and Downward Trends in Unemployment and Participation
Authors: Barnichon Régis , Figura Andrew
Published: August 2019

The US labor market witnessed two apparently unrelated secular movements in the last 30 years: a decline in unemployment between the early 1980s and the early 2000s, and a decline in participation since the early 2000s. Using CPS micro data and a stock-flow accounting framework, we show that a substantial, and hitherto unnoticed, factor behind both trends is a decline in the share of nonparticipants who are at the margin of participation. A lower share of marginal nonparticipants implies a lower unemployment rate, because marginal nonparticipants enter the labor force mostly through unemployment, while other nonparticipants enter the labor force mostly through employment.
Idiosyncratic investment risk and business cycles
Authors: Goldberg Jonathan E.
Published: August 2019

I show that, due to imperfect risk sharing, aggregate shocks to uncertainty about idiosyncratic return on investment generate economic contractions with elevated risk premia and a decrease in the risk-free rate. I present a tractable real business cycle model in which firms experience idiosyncratic shocks, to which managers are at least partially exposed the distribution of these shocks is time-varying and stochastic. I show that the path for aggregate quantities, the price of physical capital, and the equity premium are the same as in a model without idiosyncratic risk, but with time-preference shocks. That is, in response to an increase in idiosyncratic uncertainty, the response of these variables is the same as if there were no idiosyncratic uncertainty but managers were suddenly reluctant to invest. However, time-preference and idiosyncratic uncertainty shocks are not isomorphic: an increase in idiosyncratic uncertainty leads to greater demand for precautionary saving and hence a decrease in the risk-free rate in contrast, an increase in impatience has the opposite effect. In addition, with an idiosyncratic uncertainty shock, investment in physical capital can remain low even after the stock market and firm profitability recover, because managers cannot fully transfer idiosyncratic risk to diversified investors. Thus, shocks to idiosyncratic investment risk can explain, qualitatively, the aftermath of financial panics--elevated risk premia, a sharp and persistent decrease in investment, and a decrease in the risk-free rate. In a calibration, an increase in idiosyncratic investment risk similar to that experienced during the Great Recession leads firms to invest as if their cost of capital were 10 percentage points higher than the cost of capital implied by financial markets, and to a large decrease in the real risk-free rate.
Corporate Governance and Risk Management at Unprotected Banks: National Banks in the 1890s
Authors: Calomiris Charles W. , Carlson Mark A.
Published: August 2019

Managers&amp;#x27; incentives may conflict with those of shareholders or creditors, particularly at leveraged, opaque banks. Bankers may abuse their control rights to give themselves excessive salaries, favored access to credit, or to take excessive risks that benefit themselves at the expense of depositors. Banks must design contracting and governance structures that sufficiently resolve agency problems so that they can attract funding from outside shareholders and depositors. We examine banks from the 1890s, a period when there were no distortions from deposit insurance or government interventions to assist banks. We use national banks&amp;#x27; Examination Reports to link differences in managerial ownership to different corporate governance policies, risk, and methods of risk management. Formal corporate governance is lower when manager ownership shares are higher. Managerial rent seeking via salaries and insider lending is greater when managerial ownership is higher, and lower when formal governance controls are employed. Banks with higher managerial ownership target lower default risk. Higher managerial ownership and less-formal governance are associated with a greater reliance on cash rather than capital as a means of limiting risk, which we show is consistent both with higher adverse-selection costs of raising outside equity and with greater moral-hazard with respect to risk shifting.
How the Federal Reserve's Large-Scale Asset Purchases (LSAPs) Influence Mortgage-Backed Securities (MBS) Yields and U.S. Mortgage Rates
Authors: Hancock Diana , Passmore Wayne
Published: August 2019

We conduct an empirical analysis of the Federal Reserve's large-scale asset purchases (LSAPs) on MBS yields and mortgage rates. The Federal Reserve's accumulation of MBS and Treasury securities lowered MBS yields and mortgage rates by more than what would have been suggested by changes in market expectations alone, suggesting that portfolio rebalancing effects of LSAPs are an important consideration for monetary policy transmission. Our estimates also suggest that the Federal Reserve must hold a substantial market share of agency MBS or of Treasury securities to significantly lower MBS yields and in turn significantly lower mortgage rates.
How Well did Social Security Mitigate the Effects of the Great Recession?
Authors: Sommer Kamila , Peterman William B.
Published: August 2019

This paper quantifies the welfare implications of the U.S. Social Security program during the Great Recession. We find that the average welfare losses due to the Great Recession for agents alive at the time of the shock are notably smaller in an economy with Social Security relative to an economy without a Social Security program. Moreover, Social Security is particularly effective at mitigating the welfare losses for agents who are poorer, less productive, or older at the time of the shock. Importantly, in addition to mitigating the welfare losses for these potentially more vulnerable agents, we do not find any specific age, income, wealth or ability group for which Social Security substantially exacerbates the welfare consequences of the Great Recession. Taken as a whole, our results indicate that the U.S. Social Security program is particularly effective at providing insurance against business cycle episodes like the Great Recession.
Using Data on Seller Behavior to Forecast Short-Run House Price Changes
Authors: Anenberg Elliot , Laufer Steven
Published: August 2019

We construct a new 'list-price index' that accurately reveals trends in house prices several months before existing sales price indices like Case-Shiller. Our index is based on the repeat-sales approach but for recent months uses listings data, which are available essentially in real time, instead of transactions data, which become available with signifcant lags. Our index methodology is motivated by a simple model of the home-selling problem that shows how listings variables such as the list price and marketing time help predict the final sales price. In a sample of three large MSAs over the years 2008-2012, our index (i) accurately forecasts the Case-Shiller index several months in advance, (ii) outperforms forecasting models that do not use listings data, and (iii) outperforms the market's expectation as inferred from prices on Case-Shiller future contracts.
Machines vs. machines: high frequency trading and hard information
Authors: Huh Yesol
Published: August 2019

In today's markets where high frequency traders (HFTs) both provide and take liquidity, what influences HFTs' liquidity provision? I argue that information asymmetry induced by liquidity-taking HFTs' use of machine-readable information is important. Applying a novel statistical approach to measure HFT activity and using a natural experiment of index inclusion, I show that liquidity-providing HFTs supply less liquidity to stocks that suffer more from this information assymmetry problem. Moreover, when markets are volatile, this information asymmetry problem becomes more severe, and HFTs supply less liquidity. I discuss implications for market-making activity in times of market stess and for HFT regulations.
Navigating Constraints: The Evolution of Federal Reserve Monetary Policy, 1935-59
Authors: Carlson Mark A. , Wheelock David C.
Published: August 2019

The 1950s are often pointed to as a decade in which the Federal Reserve operated a particularly successful monetary policy. The present paper examines the evolution of Federal Reserve monetary policy from the mid-1930s through the 1950s in an effort to understand better the apparent success of policy in the 1950s. Whereas others have debated whether the Fed had a sophisticated understanding of how to implement policy, our focus is on how the constraints on the Fed changed over time. Roosevelt Administration gold policies and New Deal legislation limited the Fed&#x27;s ability to conduct an independent monetary policy. The Fed was forced to cooperate with the Treasury in the 1930s, and fully ceded monetary policy to Treasury financing requirements during World War II. Nonetheless, the Fed retained a policy tool in the form of reserve requirements, and from the mid-1930s to 1951, changes in required reserve ratios were the primary means by which the Fed responded to expected inflation. The inability of the Fed to maintain a credible commitment to low interest rates in the face of increased government spending and rising inflation led to the Fed-Treasury Accord of March 1951. Following the Accord, the external pressures on the Fed diminished significantly, which enabled the Fed to focus primarily on macroeconomic objectives. We conclude that a successful outcome requires not only a good understanding of how to conduct policy, but also a conducive environment in which to operate.
OccBin: A Toolkit for Solving Dynamic Models with Occasionally Binding Constraints Easily
Authors: Guerrieri Luca , Iacoviello Matteo
Published: August 2019

We describe how to adapt a first-order perturbation approach and apply it in a piecewise fashion to handle occasionally binding constraints in dynamic models. Our examples include a real business cycle model with a constraint on the level of investment and a New Keynesian model subject to the zero lower bound on nominal interest rates. We compare the piecewise linear perturbation solution with a high-quality numerical solution that can be taken to be virtually exact. The piecewise linear perturbation method can adequately capture key properties of the models we consider. A key advantage of this method is its applicability to models with a large number of state variables.
Stochastic Intensity Models of Wrong Way Risk: Wrong Way CVA Need Not Exceed Independent CVA
Authors: Ghamami Samim , Goldberg Lisa R.
Published: August 2019

Wrong way risk can be incorporated in Credit Value Adjustment (CVA) calculations in a reduced form model. Hull and White [2012] introduced a CVA model that captures wrong way risk by expressing the stochastic intensity of a counterparty's default time in terms of the financial institution's credit exposure to the counterparty. We consider a class of reduced form CVA models that includes the formulation of Hull and White and show that wrong way CVA need not exceed independent CVA. This result is based on some general properties of the model calibration scheme and a formula that we derive for intensity models of dependent CVA (wrong or right way). We support our result with a stylized analytical example as well as more realistic numerical examples based on the Hull and White model. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of our findings for Basel III CVA capital charges, which are predicated on the assumption that wrong way risk increases CVA.
Firm Entry and Employment Dynamics in the Great Recession
Authors: Siemer Michael
Published: August 2019

The 2007-2009 recession is characterized by: a large drop in employment, an unprecedented decline in firm entry, and a slow recovery. Using confidential firm-level data, I show that financial constraints reduced employment growth in small relative to large firms by 4.8 to 10.5 percentage points. The effect of financial constraints is robust to controlling for aggregate demand and is particularly strong in small young firms. I show in a heterogeneous firms model with endogenous firm entry and financial constraints that a large financial shock results in a long-lasting recession caused by a missing generation of entrants.
The Effects of Unemployment Benefits on Unemployment and Labor Force Participation: Evidence from 35 Years of Benefits Extensions
Authors: Figura Andrew , Barnichon Régis
Published: August 2019

This paper presents estimates of the effect of emergency and extended unemployment benefits (EEB) on the unemployment rate and the labor force participation rate using a data set containing information on individuals likely eligible and ineligible for EEB back to the late 1970s. To identify these estimates, we examine how exit rates from unemployment change across different points of the distribution of unemployment duration when EEB is and is not available, controlling for changes in labor demand and demographic characteristics. We find that EEB increased the unemployment rate by about one-third percentage point in the most recent recession but did not affect the participation rate. In previous recessions, the effect of EEB on the unemployment rate was even smaller.
Financial Fire Sales: Evidence from Bank Failures
Authors: Ramcharan Rodney , Rajan Raghuram
Published: August 2019

Theory suggests the reduction in financing capacity after the failure of a financial intermediary can reduce the value of financial assets. Forced sales of the intermediary's assets could consume liquidity, depressing the liquidation value of the assets of healthy intermediaries and causing contagious runs. These financial fire sales can both cause, and exacerbate, real fire sales, the focus of previous studies. This paper investigates the relevance of financial fire sales using new datasets covering bank failures during the farm depression in the United States just before the Great Depression, as well as bank failures during the Great Depression. Using differences in regulation as a means of identification, we find that the reduction in local financing capacity as a result of bank failures reduces the recovery rates on failed assets of nearby banks, depresses local land prices, renders land markets illiquid, and is associated with subsequent distress in nearby banks. All this indicates a rationale for why bank failures are contagious.
Survey incentives, survey effort, and survey costs
Authors: Bricker Jesse
Published: August 2019

This paper uses the 2007 and 2010 waves of the Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF) to investigate how monetary incentives affect the time and effort that interviewers expend during the survey field period, and how these incentives affect effort expended by the survey respondent. The results imply that a larger monetary incentive offer helps reduce contact attempts and time in the field while maintaining data quality and effort during the survey by the respondent. Our results are based on a quasi-experiment that varies which families receive an incentive offer letter. Supporting evidence is given through a comparison of field effort outcomes between 2010 and 2007 after the base incentive increased from $20 in 2007 to $50 in 2010.
Robust Dynamic Optimal Taxation and Environmental Externalities
Authors: Li Xin , Narajabad Borghan N. , Temzelides Ted
Published: August 2019

We study a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model in which agents are concerned about model uncertainty regarding climate change. An externality from greenhouse gas emissions damages the economy&#x27;s capital stock. We assume that the mapping from climate change to damages is subject to uncertainty, and we use robust control theory techniques to study efficiency and optimal policy. We obtain a sharp analytical solution for the implied environmental externality and characterize dynamic optimal taxation. A small increase in the concern about model uncertainty can cause a significant drop in optimal fossil fuel use. The optimal tax that restores the socially optimal allocation is Pigouvian. Under more general assumptions, we develop a recursive method and solve the model computationally. We find that the introduction of uncertainty matters qualitatively and quantitatively. We study optimal output growth in the presence and in the absence of concerns about uncertainty and find that these concerns can lead to substantially different conclusions.
Financing constraints and unemployment: evidence from the Great Recession
Authors: Duygan-Bump Burcu , Levkov Alexey , Montoriol-Garriga Judit
Published: August 2019

Exploiting the differential financing needs across industrial sectors, this paper shows that financing constraints of small businesses in the United States are one of the drivers explaining the unemployment dynamics during the Great Recession. We show that workers in small firms are more likely to become unemployed during the 2007-09 financial crisis if they work in industries with high external financing needs. We find very similar results for the 1990-91 recession, but not for the 2001 recession, where only the former was associated with a reduction in loan supply. These findings further support the credit constraints hypothesis.
Peer-to-Peer Lending to Small Businesses
Authors: Mach Traci L. , Carter Courtney M. , Slattery Cailin R.
Published: August 2019

The current paper examines loan-level data from Lending Club to look at peer-to-peer borrowing by small businesses. We begin by looking at characteristics of loan applications that were and were not funded and then take a more in-depth look at funded applications. Summary statistics show an increasing number of small business loan applications over time. Beginning in 2010—when consistent measures of loan purpose were recorded for all applications--loan applications for small businesses were on average less likely than loans for other purposes to have been funded. However, logistic regression results that control for the quality of the application show that, holding all else constant, applications for a loan for a small business were almost twice as likely to have been funded than loans for other purposes. Focusing on funded applications, we note that funded business loans were slightly larger on average than loans funded for other purposes but paid similar interest rates. However, relative to small business loans from traditional sources, peer-to-peer small business borrowers paid an interest rate that was about two times higher. Regression results that control for application quality show that peer-to-peer loans for small businesses were charged almost a percentage point interest rate premium over non-business loans. Logistic regression results that look at loan performance indicate that loans for small businesses were much more likely to be delinquent or charged off.
Jumps in Bond Yields at Known Times
Authors: Kim Don H. , Wright Jonathan H.
Published: August 2019

We construct a no-arbitrage term structure model with jumps in the entire state vector at deterministic times but of random magnitudes. Jump risk premia are allowed for. We show that the model implies a closed-form representation of yields as a time-inhomogenous affine function of the state vector. We apply the model to the term structure of US Treasury rates, estimated at the daily frequency, allowing for jumps on days of employment report announcements. Our model can match the empirical fact that the term structure of interest rate volatility has a hump-shaped pattern on employment report days (but not on other days). The model also produces patterns in bond risk premia that are consistent with the empirical finding that much of the time-variation in excess bond returns accrues at times of important macroeconomic data releases.
Habit, Production, and the Cross-Section of Stock Returns
Authors: Chen Andrew Y.
Published: August 2019

Solutions to the equity premium puzzle should inform us about the cross section of stock returns. An external habit model with heterogeneous firms reproduces numerous stylized facts about both the equity premium and the value premium. The equity premium is large, time-varying, and linked with consumption volatility. The cross-section of expected returns is log-linear in B/M, and the slope matches the data. The explanation for the value premium lies in the interaction between the cross-section of cash flows and the time-varying risk premium. Value firms are temporarily low productivity firms, which will eventually experience high cash flows. The present value of these temporally distant cash flows is sensitive to risk premium movements. The value premium is the reward for bearing this sensitivity. Empirical evidence verifies that value firms have higher cash-flow growth. The data also show that value stock returns are more sensitive to risk premium movements, as measured by consumption volatility shocks.
Fiscal Multipliers at the Zero Lower Bound: The Role of Policy Inertia
Authors: Hills Timothy , Nakata Taisuke
Published: August 2019

The presence of the lagged shadow policy rate in the interest rate feedback rule reduces the government spending multiplier nontrivially when the policy rate is constrained at the zero lower bound (ZLB). In the economy with policy inertia, increased inflation and output due to higher government spending during a recession speed up the return of the policy rate to the steady state after the recession ends. This in turn dampens the expansionary effects of the government spending during the recession via expectations. In our baseline calibration, the output multiplier at the ZLB is 2.5 when the weight on the lagged shadow rate is zero, and 1.1 when the weight is 0.9.
In Search of a Risk-Free Asset
Authors: Yankov Vladimir
Published: August 2019

To attract retail time deposits, over 7,000 FDIC insured U.S. commercial banks publicly post their yield offers. I document an economically sizable and highly pro-cyclical cross-sectional dispersion in these yield offers during the period 1997 - 2011. Banks adjusted their yields rigidly and asymmetrically with median duration of 7 weeks in response to increasing or constant Fed Funds rate target regimes and 3 weeks during regimes of decreasing Fed Fund rate target. I investigate to what extent information (search) costs on the part of the investors in this market can explain the observed pricing behavior. I build and estimate an asset pricing model with heterogeneous search cost investors. A large fraction of high information cost uninformed investors and the exit of low information cost informed investors rationalizes the observed price dispersion. I further qualitatively match the asymmetric yield rigidity within the framework of costly consumer search without the need to impose menu costs or other restrictions on the banks' repricing behavior.
The Interest Rate Elasticity of Mortgage Demand: Evidence from Bunching at the Conforming Loan Limit
Authors: DeFusco Anthony A. , Paciorek Andrew D.
Published: August 2019

The relationship between the mortgage interest rate and a household&#x27;s demand for mortgage debt has important implications for a host of public policy questions. In this paper, we use detailed data on over 2.7 million mortgages to provide novel estimates of the interest rate elasticity of mortgage demand. Our empirical strategy exploits a discrete jump in interest rates generated by the conforming loan limit--the maximum loan size eligible for securitization by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. This discontinuity creates a large ``notch in the intertemporal budget constraint of prospective mortgage borrowers, allowing us to identify the causal link between interest rates and mortgage demand by measuring the extent to which loan amounts bunch at the conforming limit. Under our preferred specifications, we estimate that a 1 percentage point increase in the rate on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage reduces first mortgage demand by between 2 and 3 percent. We also present evidence that about one third of the response is driven by borrowers who take out second mortgages while leaving their total mortgage balance unchanged. Accounting for these borrowers suggests a reduction in total mortgage debt of between 1.5 and 2 percent per percentage point increase in the interest rate. Using these estimates, we predict the changes in mortgage demand implied by past and proposed future increases to the guarantee fees charged by Fannie and Freddie. We conclude that these increases would directly reduce the dollar volume of new mortgage originations by well under 1 percent.
Where Are All the New Banks? The Role of Regulatory Burden in New Charter Creation
Authors: Adams Robert M. , Gramlich Jacob P.
Published: August 2019

New bank formation in the U.S. has declined dramatically since the financial crisis, from well over 100 new banks per year to less than 1. Many have suggested that this is due to newly-instituted regulation, but the current weak economy and low interest rates (which both depress banking profits) could also have played a role. We estimate a model of bank entry decisions on data from 1976 to 2013 which indicates that at least 75% of the decline in new bank formation would have occurred without any regulatory change. The standalone effect of regulation is more difficult to quantify.
Efficient Monte Carlo Counterparty Credit Risk Pricing and Measurement
Authors: Ghamami Samim , Zhang Bo
Published: August 2019

Counterparty credit risk (CCR), a key driver of the 2007-08 credit crisis, has become one of the main focuses of the major global and U.S. regulatory standards. Financial institutions invest large amounts of resources employing Monte Carlo simulation to measure and price their counterparty credit risk. We develop efficient Monte Carlo CCR estimation frameworks by focusing on the most widely used and regulatory-driven CCR measures: expected positive exposure (EPE), credit value adjustment (CVA), and effective expected positive exposure (EEPE). Our numerical examples illustrate that our proposed efficient Monte Carlo estimators outperform the existing crude estimators of these CCR measures substantially in terms of mean square error (MSE). We also demonstrate that the two widely used sampling methods, the so-called Path Dependent Simulation (PDS) and Direct Jump to Simulation date (DJS), are not equivalent in that they lead to Monte Carlo CCR estimators which are drastically different in terms of their MSE.
Banks as Patient Fixed Income Investors
Authors: Hanson Samuel , Shleifer Andrei , Stein Jeremy C. , Vishny Robert W.
Published: August 2019

We examine the business model of traditional commercial banks in the context of their co-existence with shadow banks. While both types of intermediaries create safe 'money-like' claims, they go about this in very different ways. Traditional banks create safe claims with a combination of costly equity capital and fixed income assets that allows their depositors to remain 'sleepy': they do not have to pay attention to transient fluctuations in the mark-to-market value of bank assets. In contrast, shadow banks create safe claims by giving their investors an early exit option that allows them to seize collateral and liquidate it at the first sign of trouble. Thus traditional banks have a stable source of cheap funding, while shadow banks are subject to runs and fire-sale losses. These different funding models in turn influence the kinds of assets that traditional banks and shadow banks hold in equilibrium: traditional banks have a comparative advantage at holding fixed-income assets that have only modest fundamental risk, but are relatively illiquid and have substantial transitory price volatility.
Tips from TIPS: The Informational Content of Treasury Inflation-Protected Security Prices
Authors: D'Amico Stefania , Kim Don H. , Wei Min
Published: August 2019

TIPS are notes and bonds issued by the U.S. Treasury with coupons and principal payments indexed to inflation. Using no-arbitrage term structure models, we show that TIPS yields contained liquidity premiums as large as 100 basis points when TIPS were first issued, reflecting the newness of the instrument, and up to 350 basis points during the recent financial crisis, reflecting common funding constraints affecting a variety of financial markets. Applying our models to the U.K. data also reveals liquidity premiums in index-linked gilt yields that spiked to nearly 250 basis points at the height of the crisis. Ignoring TIPS liquidity premiums is shown to significantly distort the information content of TIPS yields and TIPS breakeven inflation rate, two widely-used empirical proxies for real rates and expected inflation.
Community Bank Performance: How Important are Managers?
Authors: Amel Dean F. , Prager Robin A.
Published: August 2019

Community banks have long played an important role in the U.S. economy, providing loans and other financial services to households and small businesses within their local markets. In recent years, technological and legal developments, as well as changes in the business strategies of larger banks and non-bank financial service providers, have purportedly made it more difficult for community banks to attract and retain customers, and hence to survive. Indeed, the number of community banks and the shares of bank branches, deposits, banking assets, and small business loans held by community banks in the U.S. have all declined substantially over the past two decades. Nonetheless, many community banks have successfully adapted to their changing environment and have continued to thrive. This paper uses data from 1992 through 2011 to examine the relationships between community bank profitability and various characteristics of the banks and the local markets in which they operate. Bank characteristics examined include size, age, ownership structure, management quality, and portfolio composition market characteristics include population, per capita income, unemployment rate, and banking market structure. We find that community bank profitability is strongly positively related to bank size that local economic conditions have significant effects on bank profitability that the quality of bank management matters a great deal to profitability, especially during times of economic stress and that small banks that make major shifts to their lending portfolios tend to be less profitable than other small banks. Variables within managers' control account for between 70 percent and 96 percent of the total explanatory power of equations explaining variations in performance across community banks.
Missing Variation in the Great Moderation: Lack of Signal Error and OLS regression
Authors: Nalewaik Jeremy J.
Published: August 2019

This paper studies measurement errors that subtract signal from true variables of interest, labeled lack of signal errors (LoSE). The effect on OLS regression of LoSE is opposite the conventional wisdom about classical measurement errors, with LoSE in the dependent variable, not the explanatory variables, causing attenuation bias under some conditions. The paper provides evidence of LoSE in US GDP growth during the period known as the Great Moderation (roughly the mid-1980s to the mid-2000s), illustrating attenuation bias in regressions of GDP growth on asset prices. These biases may have contributed to conventional macroeconomic analysis missing the severity of the adverse shocks hitting the economy in the Great Recession.
The Risk Channel of Monetary Policy
Authors: De Groot Oliver
Published: August 2019

This paper examines how monetary policy affects the riskiness of the financial sector's aggregate balance sheet, a mechanism referred to as the risk channel of monetary policy. I study the risk channel in a DSGE model with nominal frictions and a banking sector that can issue both outside equity and debt, making banks' exposure to risk an endogenous choice, and dependent on the (monetary) policy environment. Banks' equilibrium portfolio choice is determined by solving the model around a risk-adjusted steady state. I find that banks reduce their reliance on debt finance and decrease leverage when monetary policy shocks are prevalent. A monetary policy reaction function that responds to movements in bank leverage or to movements in credit spreads can incentivize banks to increase their use of debt finance and increase leverage, ceteris paribus, increasing the riskiness of the financial sector for the real economy.
Are Household Investors Noise Traders: Evidence from Belief Dispersion and Stock Trading Volume
Authors: Li Dan , Li Geng
Published: August 2019

We document a robust positive relationship between the belief dispersion about macroeconomic conditions among household investors and the stock market trading volume, using more than 30 years of household survey data and a novel approach to measuring belief dispersions. Notably, such a relationship prevails even after various series of professional analysts' belief dispersions are controlled for. Consistent with a causal effect, such a relationship is most pronounced for belief dispersion among individuals who are most likely to own stocks and for trading volume of stocks that are most visible to household investors. Finally, we present suggestive evidence that the dispersion of changes in belief is also positively associated with the stock trading volume. On balance, our analysis implies that household investors, frequently believed to trade randomly as noise traders, appear to trade on their beliefs.
Debt Deflation Effects of Monetary Policy
Authors: Vardoulakis Alexandros P. , Lin Li , Tsomocos Dimitrios P.
Published: August 2019

This paper assesses the role that monetary policy plays in the decision to default using a General Equilibrium model with collateralized loans, trade in fiat money and production. Long-term nominal loans are backed by collateral, the value of which depends on monetary policy. The decision to default is endogenous and depends on the relative value of the collateral to face value of the loan. Default results in foreclosure, higher borrowing costs, inefficient investment and a decrease in total output. We show that pre-crisis contractionary monetary policy interacts with Fisherian debt-deflation dynamics and can increase the probability that a crisis occurs.
Bank Failure, Relationship Lending, and Local Economic Performance
Authors: Kandrac John
Published: August 2019

Whether bank failures have adverse effects on local economies is an important question for which there is conflicting and relatively scarce evidence. In this study, I use county-level data to examine the effect of bank failures and resolutions on local economies. Using quasi-experimental techniques as well as cross-sectional variation in bank failures, I show that recent bank failures lead to lower income and compensation growth, higher poverty rates, and lower employment. Additionally, I find that the structure of bank resolution appears to be important. Resolutions that include loss-sharing agreements tend to be less deleterious to local economies, supporting the notion that the importance of bank failure to local economies stems from banking and credit relationships. Finally, I show that markets with more inter-bank competition are more strongly affected by bank failure.
Assessing Targeted Macroprudential Financial Regulation: The Case of the 2006 Commercial Real Estate Guidance for Banks
Authors: Bassett William F. , Marsh W. Blake
Published: August 2019

In January 2006, federal regulators issued guidance requiring banks with specific high concentrations of commercial real estate (CRE) loans to tighten managerial controls. This paper shows that banks with concentrations in excess of the thresholds set in the guidance subsequently experienced slower growth in their CRE portfolios than can be explained by changes in bank or economic conditions. Moreover, banks above the CRE thresholds tended to have slower commercial and industrial loan growth but faster household loan growth following issuance of the guidance. The results highlight the potentially broad influence that portfolio-based macroprudential regulation might have on bank behavior.
Non-Linearity in the Inflation-Growth Relationship in Developing Economies: Evidence from a Semiparametric Panel Model
Authors: Baglan Deniz , Yoldas Emre
Published: August 2019

Using data on developing economies, we estimate a flexible semiparametric panel data model that incorporates potentially nonlinear effects of inflation on economic growth. We find that inflation is associated with significantly lower growth only after it reaches about 12 percent, which is notably lower than the comparable estimate obtained from a threshold model. Our results also suggest that models with restrictive functional form assumptions tend to underestimate marginal effects of inflation on economic growth. We also document significant variation in the effect of inflation on growth across countries and over time.
Business to Business Credit to Small Firms
Authors: Mach Traci L.
Published: August 2019

Following the financial crisis, total outstanding loans to businesses by commercial banks dropped off substantially. Large loans outstanding began to rebound by the third quarter of 2010 and essentially returned to their previous growth trajectory while small loans outstanding continued to decline. Anecdotal evidence suggests that firms used trade credit to smooth over cash flow problems. The current paper looks at recent trends in trade credit use by small businesses based on a recent poll done by the Credit Research Foundation. The results highlight the importance of business to business credit for small businesses. They show an increase in demand over the past year as well as a slowdown in payment that may signal a decline in the ability to pay.
What Drives the Cross-Section of Credit Spreads?: A Variance Decomposition Approach
Authors: Nozawa Yoshio
Published: August 2019

I decompose the cross-sectional variation of the credit spreads for corporate bonds into changing expected returns and changing expectation of credit losses with a model-free method. Using a log-linearized pricing identity and a vector autoregression applied to micro-level data from 1973 to 2011, I find that the expected credit loss component and the excess return component each explains about half of the variance of the credit spreads. Unlike the market-level findings in Gilchrist and Zakrajsek (2012), at the firm level, the expected credit loss is volatile and affects the firms' investment decision more than the expected excess returns.
Bank Profitability and Debit Card Interchange Regulation: Bank Responses to the Durbin Amendment
Authors: Kay Benjamin S. , Manuszak Mark D. , Vojtech Cindy M.
Published: August 2019

The Durbin Amendment to the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010 alters the competitive structure of the debit card payment processing industry and caps debit card interchange fees for banks with over $10 billion in assets. Market participants predicted that debit card issuers would offset the reduction in debit interchange revenue by increases in customer account fees. Some participants also predicted that banks would cut costs in response to the law by reducing staff and shutting down branches. Using a difference-in-differences testing strategy, we show that debit interchange fee income fell for treated banks, leading to a fall in noninterest income. We also find that banks only partially offset this loss with deposit fees. We document that treated banks neither reduced costs nor strategically avoided the $10 billion threshold.
Reconstruction Multipliers
Authors: Porcelli Francesco , Trezzi Riccardo
Published: August 2019

Following the 2009 L'Aquila earthquake, financing of reconstruction by the Italian central government resulted in a sharp and unanticipated discontinuity in grants across municipalities that were ex-ante very similar. Using the emergency financing law as an instrument, we identify the causal effect of municipal government spending on local activity, controlling for the negative supply shock from the earthquake. In our estimates, this “reconstruction multiplier” is around unity, and we show that the grants provided public insurance. Economic activity contracted in municipalities that did not receive the grants, while it expanded -or at least did not contract- in municipalities that did receive them. Our results suggest several policy implications with respect to the allocation mechanism of such grants.
Why Are Wal-Mart and Target Next-Door Neighbors?
Authors: Schuetz Jenny
Published: August 2019

One of the most notable changes in the U.S. retail market over the past twenty years has been the rise of Big Box stores, retail chains characterized by physically large stores selling a wide range of consumer goods at discount prices. A growing literature has examined the impacts of Big Box stores on other retailers and consumers, but relatively little is known about how Big Box stores choose locations. Because Big Box stores offer highly standardized products and compete primarily on price, it is likely that they will seek to establish spatial monopolies, far from competitor stores. In this paper, I examine where new Big Box stores locate with respect to three types of existing establishments: own-firm stores, other retailers in the same product space (competitors), and retailers in other product spaces (complements). Results indicate that new Big Box stores tend to avoid existing own-firm stores and locate near complementary Big Box stores. However, there is little evidence that new Big Boxes avoid competitors. Firms in the same product space may not be perfect substitutes, or firms may prefer to share consumers in a desirable location rather than cede the entire market to competitor firms.
Financial Frictions, Financial Shocks, and Aggregate Volatility
Authors: Fuentes-Albero Cristina
Published: August 2019

I revisit the Great Inflation and the Great Moderation. I document an immoderation in corporate balance sheet variables so that the Great Moderation is best described as a period of divergent patterns in volatilities for real, nominal and financial variables. A model with time-varying financial frictions and financial shocks allowing for structural breaks in the size of shocks and the institutional framework is estimated. The paper shows that (i) while the Great Inflation was driven by bad luck, the Great Moderation is mostly due to better institutions; (ii) the slowdown in credit spreads is driven by an easier access to credit, while a higher exposure to financial risk determines the immoderation of balance sheet variables; and (iii) financial shocks arise as relevant drivers of U.S. business cycle fluctuations.
The importance of Updating: Evidence from a Brazilian Nowcasting Model
Authors: Bragoli Daniela , Metelli Luca , Modugno Michele
Published: August 2019

How often should we update predictions for economic activity? Gross domestic product is a quarterly variable disseminated usually a couple of months after the end of the quarter, but many other macroeconomic indicators are released with a higher frequency, and financial markets react very strongly to them. However, most of the professional forecasters, including the IMF, the OECD, and most central banks, tend to update their forecasts of economic activity only two to four times a year. The main exception is the Central Bank of Brazil which is responsible for collecting and publishing a daily survey on GDP and other variables. The aim of this article is to evaluate the forecasting performance of the Central Bank of Brazil Survey and to compare it with the mechanical forecasts based on state-of-the-art nowcasting techniques. Results indicate that institutional forecasts perform as well as model-based forecasts. The latter finding suggests that, on the one hand, judgmental forecasters do not have computational limitations and are able to incorporate very quickly new information in a way that is as efficient as a machine. On the other hand, it confirms what has been found in other studies, namely that a linear time invariant model does a good job and hence that eventual nonlinearities, time variations and soft information (such as weather conditions or government decisions) that could be incorporated by judgment, do not provide new important information.