bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Why are Plant Deaths Countercyclical: Reallocation Timing or Fragility?
Authors: Figura Andrew
Published: August 2019

Because plant deaths destroy specific capital with large local economic impacts and potentially important macroeconomic effects, understanding the causes of deaths and, in particular, why they are concentrated in cyclical downturns, is important. The reallocation-timing hypothesis posits that plants suffering adverse permanent demand/productivity shocks delay shutdowns until cyclical downturns when plant capacity is less valuable, while the fragility hypothesis posits that shutdowns occur in downturns because the option value of maintaining the plant through weak demand periods is too low. I show that the effect that a plant's specific capital has on the timing of plant deaths differs across these two hypotheses and then use this insight to test the hypotheses' relative importance. I find that fragility is the dominant cause of the countercyclical behavior of plant deaths. This suggests that the endogenous destruction of capital is likely an important amplification and propagation mech
Rational Seasonality
Authors: Nesmith Travis D.
Published: August 2019

Seasonal adjustment usually relies on statistical models of seasonality that treat seasonal fluctuations as noise corrupting the `true&#x27; data. But seasonality in economic series often stems from economic behavior such as Christmas-time spending. Such economic seasonality invalidates the separability assumptions that justify the construction of aggregate economic indexes. To solve this problem, Diewert (1980, 1983, 1998, 1999) incorporates seasonal behavior into aggregation theory. Using duality theory, I extend these results to a larger class of decision problems. I also relax Diewert&#x27;s assumption of homotheticity. I provide support for Diewert&#x27;s preferred seasonally-adjusted economic index using weak separability assumptions that are shown to be sufficient.
A Closer Look at the Sensitivity Puzzle: The Sensitivity of Expected Future Short Rates and Term Premia to Macroeconomic News
Authors: Beechey Meredith J.
Published: August 2019

Nominal forward rates are sensitive at surprisingly long horizons to macroeconomic news and monetary-policy surprises. This paper takes advantage of affine term-structure modelling to demonstrate that movements in term premia, not expected future short rates, account for most of the reaction of forward rates at long horizons. Specifically, term premia account for about three quarters of the reaction of nominal forward rates 10 to 15 years hence to the surprise component of numerous macroeconomic news announcements. This has strong implications for the interpretation of interest-rate sensitivity. Contrary to some recent conjectures, long-horizon expectations of the level of inflation and real rates appear reasonably well anchored in the United States, but the associated term premia are quite variable.
A Cohort-Based Model of Labor Force Participation
Authors: Fallick Bruce , Pingle Jonathan F.
Published: August 2019

The probability that an individual participates in the labor force declines precipitously beyond age 50. This feature of labor supply suggests that ongoing shifts in the age distribution of the population will put substantial downward pressure on the aggregate labor force participation rate. However, the aggregate rate is also influenced by trends within age groups. Neglecting to model both within-group influences and shifting population shares will doom any estimate of aggregate labor supply. We develop a model that identifies birth cohorts' propensities to participate, uses these propensities to derive age-specific trends in participation rates, and explicitly incorporates the influence of shifting population shares in estimating aggregate labor force participation.
Bond Risk Premia and Realized Jump Volatility
Authors: Wright Jonathan H. , Zhou Hao
Published: August 2019

We find that adding a measure of market jump volatility risk to a regression of excess bond returns on the term structure of forward rates nearly doubles the R² of the regression. Our market jump volatility measure is based on the realized jumps identified from high-frequency stock market returns using the bi-power variation technique. The significant enhancement of bond return predictability is robust to different forecasting horizons, to using non-overlapping returns and to the choice of different window sizes in computing the jump volatility. This market jump volatility factor also crowds out the price-dividend ratio in explaining much of the countercyclical movement in bond risk premia. We argue that this finding provides support for the unspanned stochastic volatility hypothesis according to which the conditional distribution of excess bond returns is affected by state variables that are not in the span of the term structure of yields and forward rates.
Employer-to-Employer Flows in the United States: Estimates using Linked Employer-Employee Data
Authors: Bjelland Melissa , Fallick Bruce , Haltiwanger John , McEntarfer Erika
Published: August 2019

We use administrative data linking workers and firms to study employer-to-employer flows. After discussing how to identify such flows in quarterly data, we investigate their basic empirical patterns. We find that the pace of employer-to-employer flows is high, representing about 4 percent of employment and 30 percent of separations each quarter. The pace of employer-to-employer flows is highly procyclical, and varies systematically across worker, job and employer characteristics. Our findings regarding job tenure and earnings dynamics suggest that for those workers moving directly to new jobs, the new jobs are generally better jobs; however, this pattern is highly procyclical. There are rich patterns in terms of origin and destination of industries. We find somewhat surprisingly that more than half of the workers making employer-to-employer transitions switch even broadly-defined industries (NAICS supersectors).
Executive Compensation: A New View from a Long-Term Perspective, 1936-2005
Authors: Frydman Carola , Molloy Raven Saks
Published: August 2019

We analyze the long-run trends in executive compensation using a new panel dataset of top executives in large firms from 1936 to 2005. In sharp contrast to the well-known steep upward trajectory of pay of the past 30 years, the median real value of compensation was remarkably flat from the late 1940s to the mid-1970s, highlighting a weak relationship between compensation and aggregate firm size. While this correlation has changed considerably over the century, the cross-sectional relationship between pay and firm size has remained stable. Another surprising finding is that the sensitivity of changes in an executive's wealth to firm performance was not inconsequentially small for most of our sample period. Thus, recent years were not the first time when compensation arrangements served to align managerial incentives with those of shareholders. Overall, these trends pose a challenge to several common explanations for the recent surge in executive pay.
The Rise in U.S. Household Indebtedness: Causes and Consequences
Authors: Dynan Karen E. , Kohn Donald L.
Published: August 2019

The ratio of total household debt to aggregate personal income in the United States has risen from an average of 0.6 in the 1980s to an average of 1.0 so far this decade. In this paper we explore the causes and consequences of this dramatic increase. Demographic shifts, house price increases, and financial innovation all appear to have contributed to the rise. Households have become more exposed to shocks to asset prices through the greater leverage in their balance sheets, and more exposed to unexpected changes in income and interest rates because of higher debt payments relative to income. At the same time, an increase in access to credit and higher levels of assets should give households, on average, a greater ability to smooth through shocks. We conclude by discussing some of the risks associated with some households having become very highly indebted relative to their assets.
Forecasting with Small Macroeconomic VARs in the Presence of Instabilities
Authors: Clark Todd E. , McCracken Michael W.
Published: August 2019

Small-scale VARs are widely used in macroeconomics for forecasting U.S. output, prices, and interest rates. However, recent work suggests these models may exhibit instabilities. As such, a variety of estimation or forecasting methods might be used to improve their forecast accuracy. These include using different observation windows for estimation, intercept correction, time-varying parameters, break dating, Bayesian shrinkage, model averaging, etc. This paper compares the effectiveness of such methods in real time forecasting. We use forecasts from univariate time series models, the Survey of Professional Forecasters and the Federal Reserve Board's Greenbook as benchmarks.
Choice of Mortgage Contracts: Evidence from the Survey of Consumer Finances
Authors: Coulibaly Brahima , Li Geng
Published: August 2019

This study revisits the empirical question of the determinants of the choice between fixed- and adjustable-rate mortgages using more comprehensive data from the Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF) that overcome some of the data limitations in previous studies. The results from a Logit model of mortgage choice indicate that pricing variables and affordability are important considerations. We also find that factors such as mobility expectations, income volatility, and attitudes toward financial risk largely influence mortgage choice, with more risk-averse borrowers preferring fixed-rate mortgages. For households that are less risk averse, the mortgage type choice decision is less sensitive to pricing variables and income volatility, and affordability factors are not significant. These findings provide empirical support that underscore the importance of attitudes toward risks in mortgage choice.
Welfare-Maximizing Monetary Policy Under Parameter Uncertainty
Authors: Edge Rochelle M. , Laubach Thomas , Williams John C.
Published: August 2019

This paper examines welfare-maximizing monetary policy in an estimated micro-founded general equilibrium model of the U.S. economy where the policymaker faces uncertainty about model parameters. Uncertainty about parameters describing preferences and technology implies not only uncertainty about the dynamics of the economy. It also implies uncertainty about the model's utility-based welfare criterion and about the economy's natural rate measures of interest and output. We analyze the characteristics and performance of alternative monetary policy rules given the estimated uncertainty regarding parameter estimates. We find that the natural rates of interest and output are imprecisely estimated. We then show that, relative to the case of known parameters, optimal policy under parameter uncertainty responds less to natural-rate terms and more to other variables, such as price and wage inflation and measures of tightness or slack that do not depend on natural rates.
The Evolution of Household Income Volatility
Authors: Dynan Karen E. , Elmendorf Douglas W. , Sichel Daniel E.
Published: August 2019

Using data from the PSID, we find that household income has become noticeably more volatile during the past thirty years. We estimate that the standard deviation of percent changes in household income rose one-fourth between the early 1970s and early 2000s. This widening in the distribution of percent changes is concentrated in the tails of the distribution, and especially in the lower tail: Changes between the 25th and 75th percentiles are almost the same size now as thirty years ago, but changes at the 10th percentile look substantially more negative. The boost in volatility occurred throughout the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, albeit not at a steady pace. Households' labor earnings and transfer payments have both become more volatile over time.
Explaining a Productive Decade
Authors: Sichel Daniel E. , Oliner Stephen D. , Stiroh Kevin J.
Published: August 2019

This paper analyzes the sources of U.S. productivity growth in recent years using both aggregate and industry-level data. We confirm the central role for information technology (IT) in the productivity revival during 1995-2000 and show that IT played a significant, though smaller, role after 2000. Productivity growth after 2000 appears to have been boosted by industry restructuring and cost cutting in response to profit pressures, an unlikely source of future strength. In addition, the incorporation of intangible capital into the growth accounting framework takes some of the luster off the performance of labor productivity since 2000 and makes the gain during 1995-2000 look larger than in the official data. Finally, we examine the outlook for trend growth in labor productivity; our estimate, though subject to much uncertainty, is centered at 2-1/4 percent a year, faster than the lackluster pace that prevailed before 1995 but somewhat slower than the 1995-2006 average.
The Jumbo-Conforming Spread: A Semiparametric Approach
Authors: Sherlund Shane M.
Published: August 2019

This paper estimates the jumbo-conforming spread using data from the Federal Housing Finance Board's Monthly Interest Rate Survey from January 1993 to June 2007. Importantly, this paper augments the typical parametric approach by adding state-level foreclosure laws and ZIP-level demographic variables to the model, estimating the effects of loan size and loan-to-value ratio on mortgage rates nonparametrically, and including geographic location as a control for some potentially unobserved borrower and market characteristics that might vary over geography, such as credit scores, debt-to-income ratios, and house price volatility. A partial locallinear regression approach is used to estimate the jumbo-conforming spread, on the premise that loans similar to each other in terms of loan size, loan-to-value ratio, or geographic location might also be similar in other, unobservable borrower and market characteristics. I find estimates of the jumbo-conforming spread of 13 to 24 basis pointsâ 50 to 24 percent smaller since about 1996, when credit scores became widely used in mortgage underwriting, than estimates from a commonly used parametric model. I therefore attribute the difference in estimates to credit quality and other unobserved characteristics, among other potential explanations, making these controls an important issue in estimating the jumbo-conforming spread.
Monetary Policy Actions and Long-Run Inflation Expectations
Authors: Kiley Michael T.
Published: August 2019

The degree to which inflation expectations are anchored at long horizons is important for many issues in macroeconomics and finance. There has been little research examining observable measures of long-run inflation expectations. We investigate the evolution of survey measures of long-run inflation expectations in the United States. Our analysis emphasizes the role of a time-varying inflation objective of monetary policymakers. This focus makes monetary policy actions a key determinant of long-run inflation expectations. Our results have important implications for work on inflation dynamics, monetary policy rules, the costs of disinflation, and the term structure of interest rates.
The TIPS Yield Curve and Inflation Compensation
Authors: Gürkaynak Refet S. , Sack Brian , Wright Jonathan H.
Published: August 2019

For over ten years, the U.S. Treasury has issued index-linked debt. Federal Reserve Board staff have fitted a yield curve to these indexed securities at the daily frequency from the start of 1999 to the present. This paper describes the methodology that is used and makes the estimates public. Comparison with the corresponding nominal yield curve allows measures of inflation compensation (or breakeven inflation rates) to be computed. We discuss the interpretation of inflation compensation and its relationship to inflation expectations and uncertainty, offering some empirical evidence that these measures are affected by an inflation risk premium that varies considerably at high frequency. In addition, we also find evidence that inflation compensation was held down in the early years of the sample by a premium associated with the illiquidity of TIPS at the time. We hope that the TIPS yield curve and inflation compensation data, which are posted on the website http://www.federalreserve.gov/econresdata/researchdata/feds200805_1.html and will be updated periodically, will provide a useful tool to applied economists
Lack of Signal Error (LoSE) and Implications for OLS Regression: Measurement Error for Macro Data
Authors: Nalewaik Jeremy J.
Published: August 2019

This paper proposes a simple generalization of the classical measurement error model, introducing new measurement errors that subtract signal from the true variable of interest, in addition to the usual classical measurement errors (CME) that add noise. The effect on OLS regression of these lack of signal errors (LoSE) is opposite the conventional wisdom about CME: while CME in the explanatory variables causes attenuation bias, LoSE in the dependent variable, not the explanatory variables, causes a similar bias under some conditions. The paper provides evidence that LoSE is an important source of error in US macroeconomic quantity data such as GDP growth, illustrates downward bias in regressions of GDP growth on asset prices, and provides recommendations for econometric practice.
Starting Small and Ending Big -- The Effect of Monetary Incentives on Response Rates in the 2003 Survey of Small Business Finances: An Observational Experiment
Authors: Mach Traci L. , Hazelwood Lieu N. , Wolken John D.
Published: August 2019

In 2003, the Survey of Small Business Finances (SSBF), conducted by the Federal Reserve Board, implemented the use of incentives to increase response rates. This study examines the effects of some of the characteristics of the implementation - such as level of effort, time in queue, and consecutively-increasing incentive amounts - on unit response. Our estimates suggest that as the number of days increase between the initial screener and main interview, the probability of completion decreases. Similarly, as the number of days increases between each consecutive incentive offer the probability of completion decreases. Additional effort, as measured by additional calls, increases the probability of completion. Finally, each consecutive offer after the initial offer decreases the probability of completion.
Market Conditions and Hedge Fund Survival
Authors: Carlson Mark A. , Steinman Jason
Published: August 2019

As the hedge fund industry has grown, there has been increased concern that, during sharp market moves, hedge fund failures could exacerbate the deterioration in financial conditions and deepen a crisis. However, there has not been much formal analysis regarding the impact of financial market conditions on hedge fund survival. To help fill this gap, this paper examines the relationship between financial market conditions and the likelihood of hedge fund failure after controlling for performance and other characteristics. The analysis is conducted using data on individual funds and industry aggregates. We find that market returns and volatility influence fund failures, although the impact depends on the funds&#x27; investment strategies. The results of the analysis are then used to predict hedge fund failures based on actual market returns and on stress scenarios. We find that the hedge fund industry is generally robust to different shocks.
Temporal Risk Aversion and Asset Prices
Authors: Van den Heuvel Skander J.
Published: August 2019

Agents with standard, time-separable preferences do not care about the temporal distribution of risk. This is a strong assumption. For example, it seems plausible that a consumer may find persistent shocks to consumption less desirable than uncorrelated fluctuations. Such a consumer is said to exhibit temporal risk aversion. This paper examines the implications of temporal risk aversion for asset prices. The innovation is to work with expected utility preferences that (i) are not time-separable, (ii) exhibit temporal risk aversion, (iii) separate risk aversion from the intertemporal elasticity of substitution, (iv) separate short-run from long-run risk aversion and (v) yield stationary asset pricing implications in the context of an endowment economy. Closed form solutions are derived for the equity premium and the risk free rate. The equity premium depends only on a parameter indexing long-run risk aversion. The risk-free rate instead depends primarily on a separate parameter indexing the desire to smooth consumption over time and the rate of time preference.
Distress in the Financial Sector and Economic Activity
Authors: Carlson Mark A. , King Thomas B. , Lewis Kurt F.
Published: August 2019

This paper explores the relationship between the health of the financial sector and the rest of the economy. We develop an index of financial sector health using a distance-to-default measure based on a Merton-style option pricing model. Our index spans over three decades and appears to capture periods when financial sector institutions were strong and when they were weak. We then use vector autoregressions to assess whether our index of financial-sector health affects the real economy, in particular non-residential investment. The results indicate that our index has a considerable impact. Moreover, we find that this financial channel amplifies changes in investment resulting from shocks to non-financial firm profitability.
Do Behavioral Biases Adversely Affect the Macro-Economy?
Authors: Korniotis George M. , Kumar Alok
Published: August 2019

This study investigates whether the adverse effects of investors' behavioral biases extend beyond the domain of financial markets to the broad macro-economy. We focus on the risk sharing (or income smoothing) role of financial markets and demonstrate that risk sharing levels are higher in U.S. states in which investors have higher cognitive abilities and exhibit weaker behavioral biases. Further, states with better risk sharing opportunities achieve higher levels of risk sharing if investors in those states exhibit greater financial sophistication. Among the various determinants of risk sharing, behavioral factors have the strongest effects. The average level of risk sharing in states with unsophisticated investors (= 0.121) is less than half of the average risk sharing level in states with financially sophisticated investors (= 0.308). Collectively, our evidence indicates that the high risk sharing potential of financial markets is not fully realized because the aggregate behavioral biases of individual investors impede state-level risk sharing.
Revisiting the Supply-Side Effects of Government Spending
Authors: Angeletos George-Marios , Panousi Vasia
Published: August 2019

We revisit the macroeconomic effects of government consumption in the neoclassical growth model when agents face uninsured idiosyncratic investment risk. Under complete markets, a permanent increase in government consumption has no long-run effect on the interest rate and the capital-labor ratio, while it increases hours due to the negative wealth effect. These results are upset once we allow for incomplete markets. The same negative wealth effect now causes a reduction in risk taking and the demand for investment. This leads to a lower risk-free rate and, under certain conditions, also to a lower capital-labor ratio, and lower productivity.
The Shimer Puzzle and the Identification of Productivity Shocks
Authors: Barnichon Régis
Published: August 2019

Shimer (2005) argues that the Mortensen-Pissarides (MP) model of unemployment lacks an amplification mechanism because it generates less than 10 percent of the observed business cycle fluctuations in unemployment given labor productivity shocks of plausible magnitude. This paper argues that part of the problem lies with the identification of productivity shocks. Because of the endogeneity of measured labor productivity, filtering out the trend component as in Shimer (2005) may not correctly identify the shocks driving unemployment. Using a New-Keynesian framework to control for the endogeneity of productivity, this paper estimates that the MP model can account for a third, and possibly as much as 60 percent, of fluctuations in labor market variables.
State and Local Finances and the Macroeconomy: The High-Employment Budget and Fiscal Impetus
Authors: Follette Glenn , Kusko Andrea L. , Lutz Byron F.
Published: August 2019

We examine the interplay of the economy and state and local budgets by developing and examining two measures of fiscal policy: the high-employment budget and fiscal impetus. We find that a 1 percentage point increase in cyclical GDP results in a 0.1 percentage point increase in NIPA-based net saving through the automatic response of taxes and expenditures. State and local budget policies are found to be modestly pro-cyclical. Stimulus to aggregate demand is about 0.2 percentage point less following a business cycle peak than it is during the period before the business cycle peak.
A Comparison of Forecast Performance Between Federal Reserve Staff Forecasts, Simple Reduced-Form Models, and a DSGE Model
Authors: Edge Rochelle M. , Kiley Michael T. , Laforte Jean-Philippe
Published: August 2019

This paper considers the 'real-time' forecast performance of the Federal Reserve staff, time-series models, and an estimated dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model--the Federal Reserve Board's new Estimated, Dynamic, Optimization-based (Edo) model. We evaluate forecast performance using out-of-sample predictions from 1996 through 2005, thereby examining over 70 forecasts presented to the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC). Our analysis builds on previous real-time forecasting exercises along two dimensions. First, we consider time-series models, a structural DSGE model that has been employed to answer policy questions quite different from forecasting, and the forecasts produced by the staff at the Federal Reserve Board. In addition, we examine forecasting performance of our DSGE model at a relatively detailed level by separately considering the forecasts for various components of consumer expenditures and private investment. The results provide significant support to the notion that richly specified DSGE models belong in the forecasting toolbox of a central bank.
Inflation Expectations, Uncertainty, the Phillips Curve, and Monetary Policy
Authors: Kiley Michael T.
Published: August 2019

Inflation expectations play a central role in models of the Phillips curve. At long time horizons inflation expectations may reflect the credibility of a monetary authority's commitment to price stability. These observations highlight the importance of inflation expectations for monetary policy. These comments touch on three issues regarding inflation expectations: The evolving treatment of inflation expectations in empirical Phillips curve models three recent models of information imperfections and inflation expectations and potential policy implications of different models.
Interchange Fees and Payment Card Networks: Economics, Industry Developments, and Policy Issues
Authors: Prager Robin A. , Manuszak Mark D. , Kiser Elizabeth K. , Borzekowski Ron
Published: August 2019

In many countries around the world, electronic card-based payments have been replacing older types of payments at a rapid rate. In the United States, use of both debit cards and credit cards has been rising rapidly, while check volumes have been declining. The increased use of electronic payment methods has generated a number of public policy debates. One prominent debate concerns interchange fees. This paper is intended to provide background for understanding the interchange fee debate. The paper describes the operation of a typical payment card system, presents a summary of the economic theory underlying interchange fees, and discusses various developments in the U.S. payment cards industry, as well as legal and regulatory developments abroad. The paper concludes with a discussion and critical evaluation of a number of potential policy interventions.
Vacancy Posting, Job Separation and Unemployment Fluctuations
Authors: Barnichon Régis
Published: August 2019

This paper studies the relative importance of the two main determinants of cyclical unemployment fluctuations: vacancy posting and job separation. Using a matching function to model the flow of new jobs, I draw on Shimer's (2007) unemployment flow rates decomposition and find that job separation and vacancy posting respectively account for about 40 and 60 percent of unemployment's variance. When considering higher-order moments, I find that job separation contributes to about 60 percent of unemployment steepness asymmetry, a stylized fact of the jobless rate. Finally, while vacancy posting is, on average, the most important contributor of unemployment fluctuations, the opposite is true around business cycle turning points, when job separation is responsible for most of unemployment movements.
Household Response to the 2008 Tax Rebate: Survey Evidence and Aggregate Implications
Authors: Sahm Claudia R. , Shapiro Matthew D. , Slemrod Joel
Published: August 2019

Only about one-fifth of respondents in the Reuters/University of Michigan survey report that the 2008 tax rebates led them to mostly increase spending, while over half said it would lead them to mostly pay off debt. Of those in the mostly-spend category, the response was swift, with over 80 percent reporting increasing their spending within three months of receiving their rebate. Older households, households with higher wealth and higher income, and those expecting future income growth were generally more likely to spend the rebates. A review of other surveys confirms the general pattern of results and suggests that small changes in survey design do not have a major effect on the distribution of responses. The distribution of survey answers corresponds to an aggregate MPC after one year of about one-third. The paper combines this survey-based estimate of the MPC and the survey-based estimate of the timing of spending to show that the rebates help explain the aggregate movements in saving, spending, and debt in 2008. Because the rebate was large and distributed over a short period, we estimate that it had a non-trivial effect on total spending in the second and third quarters of 2008. Nonetheless, the results imply that the rebates provided only a modest stimulus to spending per dollar of rebate.
Mergers and Sequential Innovation: Evidence from Patent Citations
Authors: Stahl Jessica C.
Published: August 2019

An extensive literature has investigated the effect of market structure on innovation. A persistent concern is that market structure may be endogenous to innovation. Firms may choose to merge so as to capture information spillovers or they may choose to merge so as to dampen competition in innovation. These two scenarios have very different welfare implications. This paper attempts to distinguish between the two scenarios empirically, looking at recent mergers among public companies in the United States. Using patent citation data, I find evidence that firms increase their rate of sequential innovation in the years preceding a merger, and reduce their rate of sequential innovation in the years following a merger. This suggests that mergers are motivated more by the desire to dampen competition than by the desire to capture information spillovers. I use citation-based measures of patent value to shed light on the welfare implications. The question is relevant for policy, as the FTC and DOJ frequently cite innovation as a reason for concern about a merger.
Structural Shocks and the Comovements between Output and Interest Rates
Authors: Mertens Elmar
Published: August 2019

Stylized facts on U.S. output and interest rates have so far proved hard to match with DSGE models. But model predictions hinge on the joint specification of economic structure and a set of driving processes. In a model, different shocks often induce different comovements, such that the overall pattern depends as much on the specified transmission mechanisms from shocks to outcomes, as well as on the composition of these driving processes. I estimate covariances between output, nominal and real interest rate conditional on several shocks, since such evidence has largely been lacking in previous discussions of the output-interest rate puzzle. Conditional on shocks to neutral technology and monetary policy, the results square with simple models, like the standard RBC model or a textbook version of the New Keynesian model. In addition, news about future productivity help to explain the overall counter-cyclical behavior of the real rate. A sub-sample analysis documents also interesting changes in these pattern. During the Great Inflation (1959-1979), permanent shocks to inflation accounted for the counter-cyclical behavior of the real rate and its inverted leading indicator property. Over the Great Moderation (1982-2006), neutral technology shocks were more dominant in explaining comovements between output and interest rates, and the real rate has been pro-cyclical.
Industry Evidence on the Effects of Government Spending
Authors: Nekarda Christopher J. , Ramey Valerie A.
Published: August 2019

This paper investigates industry-level effects of government purchases in order to shed light on the transmission mechanism for government spending on the aggregate economy. We begin by highlighting the different theoretical predictions concerning the effects of government spending on industry labor market equilibrium. We then create a panel data set that matches output and labor variables to shifts in industry-specific government demand. The empirical results indicate that increases in government demand raise output and hours, but lower real product wages and productivity. Markups do not change as a result of government demand increases. The results are consistent with the neoclassical model of government spending, but they are not consistent with the New Keynesian model of the effects of government spending.
Consumption Responses to Permanent and Transitory Shocks to House Appreciation
Authors: Contreras Juan , Nichols Joseph B.
Published: August 2019

We estimate the marginal propensity to consume (MPC) out of permanent and transitory shocks to house price appreciation. We consider two different models under which those shocks may affect consumption. In the first one, housing is a risky asset. In the second one, housing has a role as a consumption and as an investment good. In both, changes in the rate of house price appreciation may affect nonhousing consumption. Shocks to appreciation rates may happen when increases in future house prices are expected to differ from the current ones because heterogeneity, market failures or errors in expectations. We test the implications of those models empirically using the PSID&#x27;s imputed total consumption from food consumption and self-reported house values, and base our identification strategy on two sources of variation in the appreciation rate. The first source depends on the fact that home prices are far more cyclical in areas where the supply of housing is relatively inelastic. The second source is households&#x27; perceptions about which parts of shocks to appreciation rates are permanent or transitory. We model households&#x27; self-reported rate of appreciation as an AR(1) process and use both the Hodrick-Prescott and the Kalman filter to separate households&#x27; perceptions about permanent and transitory shocks to appreciation. Our results show that (1) consumption responses to house wealth shocks vary greatly by area and depend upon the area-specific levels of temporal persistence and variance of those shocks (2) the overall MPC out of those shocks is 3.5% (3) the MPC out of permanent shocks is between 3.4% and 9.1% and (4) the MPC out of transitory shocks is between 0.5% and 3.3%.
The Bank Lending Channel of Monetary Policy and its Effect on Mortgage Lending
Authors: Black Lamont K. , Hancock Diana , Passmore Wayne
Published: August 2019

The bank lending channel of monetary policy suggests that banks play a special role in the transmission of monetary policy. We look for this special role by examining the business strategies of banks as it relates to mortgage funding and mortgage lending. 'Traditional banks' have a large supply of excess core deposits and specialize in information-intensive lending to borrowers (which is proxied here using mortgage lending in subprime communities), whereas 'market-based banks' are funded with managed liabilities and mainly lend to relatively easy-to-evaluate borrowers. We predict that only 'transition banks' operating between these business strategies are likely to increase their loan rate spreads substantially in response to monetary tightening. To fund ongoing mortgage originations, these banks must substitute from core deposits to managed liabilities, which have a large external finance premium due to these banks' information-intensive lending. Consistent with this prediction, we find evidence of a bank lending channel only among transition banks -- they significantly reduce mortgage lending in response to monetary contractions.
Fiscal Policy in the United States: Automatic Stabilizers, Discretionary Fiscal Policy Actions, and the Economy
Authors: Follette Glenn , Lutz Byron F.
Published: August 2019

We examine the effects of the economy on the government budget as well as the effects of the budget on the economy. First, we provide measures of the effects of automatic stabilizers on budget outcomes at the federal and state and local levels. For the federal government, the deficit increases about 0.35 percent of GDP for each 1 percentage point deviation of actual GDP relative to potential GDP. For state and local governments, the deficit increases by about 0.1 percent of GDP. We then examine the response of the economy to the automatic stabilizers using the FRB/US model by comparing the response to aggregate demand shocks under two scenarios: with the automatic stabilizers in place and without the automatic stabilizers. Second, we provide measures of discretionary fiscal policy actions at the federal and state and local levels. We find that federal policy actions are somewhat counter-cyclical while state and local policy actions have been somewhat pro-cyclical. Finally, we evaluate the impact of the budget, from both automatic stabilizers and discretionary actions, on economic activity in 2008 and 2009.
What Drives Movements in the Unemployment Rate? A Decomposition of the Beveridge Curve
Authors: Barnichon Régis , Figura Andrew
Published: August 2019

This paper presents a framework to interpret movements in the Beveridge curve and analyze unemployment fluctuations. We decompose the unemployment rate into three main components: (1) a component driven by changes in labor demand--movements along the Beveridge curve and shifts in the Beveridge curve due to layoffs--(2) a component driven by changes in labor supply--shifts in the Beveridge curve due to quits, movements in-and-out of the labor force and demographics--and (3) a component driven by changes in the efficiency of matching unemployed workers to jobs. We find that cyclical movements in unemployment are dominated by changes in labor demand, but that changes in labor supply due to movements in-and-out of the labor force also play an important role. Further, cyclical changes in labor demand lead cyclical changes in labor supply. Changes in matching efficiency generally play a small role but can decline substantially in recessions. At low-frequencies, labor demand displays no trend, and changes in labor supply explain virtually all of the secular trend in unemployment since 1976.
The Fragility of Discretionary Liquidity Provision: Lessons from the Collapse of the Auction Rate Securities Market
Authors: Han Song , Li Dan
Published: August 2019

We study the fragility of discretionary liquidity provision by major financial intermediaries during systemic events. The laboratory of our study is the recent collapse of the auction rate securities (ARS) market. Using a comprehensive dataset constructed from auction reports and intraday transactions data on municipal ARS, we present quantitative evidence that auction dealers acted at their own discretion as 'market makers' before the market collapsed. We show that this discretionary liquidity provision greatly affected both net investor demand and auction clearing rates. Importantly, such discretionary liquidity provision is fragile. As auction dealers suffered losses from other financial markets and faced increasing inventory pressure, they stopped making markets. Moreover, the drop in support occurred suddenly, apparently triggered by the unexpected withdrawal of one major broker-dealer.
Money and Inflation: Some Critical Issues
Authors: McCallum Bennett T. , Nelson Edward
Published: August 2019

We consider what, if any, relationship there is between monetary aggregates and inflation, and whether there is any substantial reason for modifying the current mainstream mode of policy analysis, which frequently does not consider monetary aggregates at all. We begin by considering the body of thought known as the 'quantity theory of money.' The quantity theory centers on the prediction that there will be a long-run proportionate reaction of the price level to an exogenous increase in the nominal money stock. The nominal homogeneity conditions that deliver the quantity-theory result are the same as those that deliver monetary neutrality, an important principle behind policy formulation. The quantity theory implies a ceteris paribus unitary relationship between inflation and money growth. Simulations of a New Keynesian model suggest that we should expect this relationship to be apparent in time series data, with no heavy averaging or filtering required, but with allowance needed for the phase shift in the relationship between monetary growth rates and inflation. While financial innovation can obscure the relationship between monetary growth and inflation, evidence of a money growth/inflation relationship does emerge from U.S. time series and G7 panel data. Various considerations suggest that studies of inflation and monetary policy behavior can benefit from including both interest rates and money in the empirical analysis.
The Contribution of the Minimum Wage to U.S. Wage Inequality over Three Decades: A Reassessment
Authors: Autor David H. , Manning Alan , Smith Christopher L.
Published: August 2019

We reassess the effect of state and federal minimum wages on U.S. earnings inequality, attending to two issues that appear to bias earlier work: violation of the assumed independence of state wage levels and state wage dispersion, and errors-in-variables that inflate impact estimates via an analogue of the well known division bias problem. We find that erosion of the real minimum wage raises inequality in the lower tail of the wage distribution (the 50/10 wage ratio), but the impacts are typically less than half as large as those reported in the literature and are almost negligible for males. Nevertheless, the estimated effects of the minimum wage on points of the wage distribution extend to wage percentiles where the minimum is nominally non-binding, implying spillovers. We structurally estimate these spillovers and show that their relative importance grows as the nominal minimum wage becomes less binding. Subsequent analysis underscores, however, that spillovers and measurement error (absent spillovers) have similar implications for the effect of the minimum on the shape of the lower tail of the measured wage distribution. With available precision, we cannot reject the hypothesis that estimated spillovers to non-binding percentiles are due to reporting artifacts. Accepting this null, the implied effect of the minimum wage on the actual wage distribution is smaller than the effect of the minimum wage on the measured wage distribution.
Differences Across Originators in CMBS Loan Underwriting
Authors: Black Lamont K. , Chu Chenghuan Sean , Cohen Andrew M. , Nichols Joseph B.
Published: August 2019

Differences in the organizational structure of CMBS loan originators may reflect differences in the incentives they face for underwriting risky loans. We treat an originator&amp;#x27;s type--that is, commercial bank, investment bank, insurance company, finance company, conduit lender, or foreign-owned entity--as a proxy for incentives related to warehousing risk, balance sheet lending, and regulatory constraints. After controlling for observable credit characteristics of over 30,000 loans securitized into CMBS after 1999, we find considerable differences in loan performance across originator types. The results suggest that moral hazard--captured by lack of warehousing risk-negatively affected the quality of loans underwritten by conduit lenders. On the other hand, despite opportunities for adverse selection, balance sheet lenders--commercial banks, insurance companies and finance companies--actually underwrote higher quality loans.
What Drives Matching Efficiency? A Tale of Composition and Dispersion
Authors: Barnichon Régis , Figura Andrew
Published: August 2019

This paper presents a framework to study movements in the matching efficiency of the labor market and highlights two observable factors affecting matching efficiency: (i) unemployment composition and (ii) dispersion in labor market conditions, the fact that tight labor markets coexist with slack ones. Using CPS micro data over 1976-2009, we find that composition is responsible for most of the movements in matching efficiency until 2006. In 2008-2009, only forty percent of an exceptionally low matching efficiency can be attributed to composition. New highly disaggregated data on vacancies and unemployment show that the unexplained decline in matching efficiency coincides with an increase in dispersion.
Financial Capital and the Macroeconomy: Policy Considerations
Authors: Kiley Michael T. , Sim Jae W.
Published: August 2019

We develop a macroeconomic model in which the balance sheet/liquidity condition of financial institutions plays an important role in the determination of asset prices and economic activity. The financial intermediaries in our model are required to make investment commitments before a complete resolution of idiosyncratic funding risk that can be addressed only by costly refinancing, forcing them to behave in a risk-averse manner. The model shows that the balance sheet condition of intermediaries can drive asset values away from their fundamentals, causing aggregate investment and output to respond to shocks to intermediaries. We use this model to evaluate several public policies designed to address balance sheet problems at financial institutions. With regard to short-run policies, we find that capital injections conditioned upon voluntary recapitalization can be a more effective tool than direct lending/asset purchases. With regard to long-run policies, we demonstrate that higher capital requirements can have sizable short-run effects on economic activity if not implemented carefully, and that a long transition period helps avoid such effects.
Examining the Impact of Credit Access on Small Firm Survivability
Authors: Mach Traci L. , Wolken John D.
Published: August 2019

This paper examines the effects of credit availability on small firm survivability over the period 2004 to 2008 for non-publicly traded small enterprises. Using data from the 2003 Survey of Small Business Finances, we develop failure prediction models for a sample of small firms that were confirmed to have been in business as of December 2003, with particular attention to the impact of credit constraints. We find that credit constrained firms were significantly more likely to go out of business than non constrained firms. Moreover, credit constraint and credit access variables appear to be among the most important factors predicting which small U.S. firms went out of business during the 2004-2008 period even though an extensive set of firm, owner, and market characteristics were also included as explanatory factors.