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Working Paper
Forecasting macro variables with a Qual VAR business cycle turning point index
One criticism of VAR forecasting is that macroeconomic variables tend not to behave as linear functions of their own past around business cycle turning points. This article investigates the methods and efficacy of forecasting with a VAR that expands the information set to include dynamic forecasts of a qualititative variable - business cycle turning points. We apply this Qual VAR model to five of the G7 economies and find that the Qual VAR improves on forecasts from standard models, both for the qualitative variable and for macroeconomic data, such as industrial production. The improvement in ...
Working Paper
Market microstructure effects on the direct measurement of the early exercise premium in exchange-listed options
The Chicago Board Options Exchange concurrently listed European-style and American-style options on the Standard and Poor?s 500 Index from April 2, 1986 through June 20, 1986. We match near-the-money American option quotes with the most nearly contemporaneous, otherwise identical, European option quote. In this unique sample, the bid-ask spread for the American options is twice as large as the bid-ask spread for the European options. We find that the differences in the size of the bid-ask spreads and non-contemporaneous observations create an errors-in-variables problem that, if ignored, ...
Journal Article
Can nominal GDP targeting rules stabilize the economy?
Working Paper
Directly measuring early exercise premiums using American and European S&P 500 index options
The Chicago Board Options Exchange concurrently listed European-style and American-style options on the Standard and Poor's 500 Index from April 2, 1986 through June 20, 1986. This unique time period allows for a direct measurement of the early-exercise premium in American-style index options. In this study, using ask quotes, we find average early exercise premiums ranging from 5.04% to 5.90% for calls, and from 7.97% to 10.86% for puts. Additionally, we are able to depict a potentially useful functional form of the early exercise premium. As in previous studies, we find some instances of ...
Working Paper
A monetary policy feedback rule in Korea's fast-growing economy
In Korea's high-growth economy, the Bank of Korea had been willing to tolerate double-digit inflation, provided that it remained at "non-explosive" levels. In this article, we estimate a monetary policy feedback rule for Korea and find that the upper threshold of tolerable inflation for the Bank of Korea was about 20 percent. It appears that the Bank of Korea's disciplined, rule-like approach to monetary policy was able to control inflation and keep it away from explosive levels, despite the well-know empirical regularity that inflation becomes more variable at higher levels. After 1983, ...
Working Paper
Aggregate price shocks and financial stability: the United Kingdom 1796-1999
This paper investigates the impact historically of aggregate price shocks on financial stability in the United Kingdom. We construct an annual index of U.K. financial conditions for 1790-1999 and use a dynamic probit model to estimate the effect of aggregate price shocks on the index. We find that price level shocks contributed significantly to financial instability during 1820-1931, and that inflation rate shocks contributed to instability during 1972-99. Both the nature of aggregate price shocks and their impact depend on the existing monetary and financial regime, but price shocks ...
Journal Article
FOMC decisions and bond market uncertainty
Journal Article
The preemptive Fed
Journal Article
A barometer of financial market uncertainty
Journal Article
The FOMC in 1996: \\"watchful waiting\\"
In light of recent research findings, Michael J. Dueker and Andreas M. Fischer review the 1996 policy posture of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), the monetary policymaking body of the Federal Reserve System. They find several areas in which the FOMC's policy positions were consistent with the conclusions of recent research studies, whether or not these studies directly influenced the Committee's thinking. In general, the authors conclude that the FOMC intended to ensure that inflation was contained near 3 percent in 1996 but did not intend to bring down the trend rate of inflation ...