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Report
Time variation in asset price responses to macro announcements
Although the effects of economic news announcements on asset prices are well established, these relationships are unlikely to be stable. This paper documents the time variation in the responses of yield curves and exchange rates using high-frequency data from January 2000 through August 2011. Significant time variation in news effects is present for those announcements that have the largest effects on asset prices. The time variation in effects is explained by economic conditions, including the level of policy rates at the time of the news release, and risk conditions: Government bond yields ...
Journal Article
Policy initiatives in the global recession: what did forecasters expect?
The global recession of 2008-09 led to monetary and fiscal policy responses by central banks and government authorities that were often unconventional in size and scope. A study of expansionary measures employed during the recession suggests that overall, the policies were likely effective in shaping the outlook for a recovery, as forecasters raised their expectations of inflation and GDP growth after the policies? implementation. From this perspective, the policies stimulated economic activity and prevented deflationary pressures during the financial crisis.
Discussion Paper
The Vanishing U.S.-E.U. Employment Gap
The employment-to-population ratio—the share of adults that are employed—has historically been much higher in the United States than in Europe. However, the gap narrowed dramatically in the last decade and had almost disappeared by the end of 2009. In this post, we show that the narrowing employment gap is due to three factors: declining U.S. employment rates across almost all age-gender groups; more women working in Europe, particularly prime-age and older workers; and rising employment for older European men. We link most of these shifts to the influence of underlying trends (many ...
Working Paper
Portfolio Rebalancing in Times of Stress
This paper investigates time variation in the dynamics of international portfolio equity flows. We extend the empirical model of Hau and Rey (2004) by embedding a two-state Markov regime-switching model into the structural VAR. The model is estimated using monthly data, 1995-2015, on equity returns, exchange rate returns and equity flows between the United States and advanced and emerging economies. We find that the data are consistent with portfolio rebalancing. The estimated states match periods of low and high financial stress. Our main result is that for equity flows between the United ...