Search Results
Journal Article
Improving the measurement of cross-border securities holdings: the Treasury International Capital SLT
In the wake of the financial crisis, growing interest in improving the measurement of cross-border securities positions and flows spurred the introduction of a new Treasury International Capital (TIC) reporting form, the TIC Security Long Term (SLT). This article reviews the existing structure of TIC cross-border position and flow data, the benefits that the new SLT can provide, and the incoming information from the first two reporting months of SLT data, September and December 2011. While some patterns and characteristics of the SLT data will become clear only after more data have ...
Working Paper
Whither the liquidity effect: the impact of Federal Reserve Open Market Operations in recent years
Previous research indicated that the daily liquidity effect, or the change in the federal funds rate associated with an exogenous change in Fed balances, varies with several factors including the day of the maintenance period. In this paper, we examine the data over the recent period of increased Federal Reserve transparency and find that the liquidity effect stabilized across days of the maintenance period. Rather, the liquidity effect may be a function of the uncertainty about banks' end-of-day balances. Moreover, we find that increased transparency led to a larger liquidity effect on the ...
Working Paper
Inflation, volatility and growth
This paper re-examines the relationship between inflation, inflation volatility and growth using cross-country panel data for the past 30 years. With regard to the level of inflation, we find that in contrast to current findings which are based on cross-sectional time-average regression comparisons, exploiting the time dimension of the data reveals a strong negative correlation between inflation and income growth for all but very low inflation countries. To examine the role of inflation uncertainty on growth, we use intra-year inflation data to construct an annual measure of inflation ...
Working Paper
A study of U.S. monetary policy implementation: demand for reserves on a period average basis
This paper provides new estimates of banks' demand for excess reserve balances on a period average basis. Consistent with theoretical work, we find that the demand for excess depends critically on uncertainty of flows in and out of reserve accounts. We also document the variability of demand for excess reserve balances by institution size, evaluate different models for forecasting demand for excess on a period average basis, and report the forecasting performance of each of these models. Finally, we present analysis of the period of financial turmoil seen over the year since August, 2007.
Working Paper
Estimating the worldwide volume of counterfeit U.S. currency: data and extrapolation
The incidence of currency counterfeiting and the possible total stock of counterfeits in circulation are popular topics of speculation and discussion in the press and are of substantial practical interest to the U.S. Treasury and the U.S. Secret Service. This paper assembles data from Federal Reserve and U.S. Secret Service sources and presents a range of estimates for the number of counterfeits in circulation. In addition, the paper presents figures on counterfeit passing activity by denomination, location, and method of production. The paper has two main conclusions: first, the stock of ...
Journal Article
The location of U.S. currency: how much is abroad?
Federal Reserve bank notes are widely used outside the United States. Knowledge of how much U.S. currency is abroad is important for a variety of reasons, but currency movements are notoriously difficult to measure, and estimates of the foreign component of currency stocks and flows have been subject to a great deal of speculation and uncertainty. This article brings together several new methods and data sources to narrow the range of that uncertainty. The authors estimate that about $200 billion-$250 billion of U.S. currency was abroad at the end of 1995, or more than half the roughly $375 ...
Journal Article
Improving the measurement of cross-border securities holdings: the Treasury International Capital SLT
In the wake of the financial crisis, growing interest in improving the measurement of cross-border securities positions and flows spurred the introduction of a new Treasury International Capital (TIC) reporting form, the TIC Security Long Term (SLT). This article reviews the existing structure of TIC cross-border position and flow data, the benefits that the new SLT can provide, and the incoming information from the first two reporting months of SLT data, September and December 2011. While some patterns and characteristics of the SLT data will become clear only after more data have ...
Working Paper
Do low human capital coefficients make sense? A puzzle and some answers
I develop a new measure of human capital stock that has two advantages over previous measures. First, it allows for varying costs of education across time, countries, and level of education. Second, the unit of measurement is dollars, which allows comparison of human capital stocks with other macro- economic variables, including national income (GDP) and physical capital stocks. Using cross-country panel regression analysis, I find that human capital accumulation accounts for a relatively small (about ten percent) of per-capita GDP growth. I further find that, unlike physical capital, the ...
Journal Article
Improving Measurement of Cross-Border Securities Holdings: The TIC SLT
In the wake of the financial crisis, growing interest in improving the measurement of cross-border securities positions and flows spurred the introduction of a new Treasury International Capital (TIC) reporting form, the TIC Security Long Term (SLT). This article reviews the existing structure of TIC cross-border position and flow data, the benefits that the new SLT can provide, and the incoming information from the first two reporting months of SLT data, September and December 2011. While some patterns and characteristics of the SLT data will become clear only after more data have ...
Discussion Paper
Estimating the volume of counterfeit U.S. currency in circulation worldwide: data and extrapolation
The incidence of currency counterfeiting and the possible total stock of counterfeits in circulation are popular topics of speculation and discussion in the press and are of substantial practical interest to the U.S. Treasury and the U.S. Secret Service. This paper assembles data from Federal Reserve and U.S. Secret Service sources and presents a range of estimates for the number of counterfeits in circulation. In addition, the paper presents figures on counterfeit passing activity by denomination, location, and method of production. The paper has two main conclusions: first, the stock of ...