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Journal Article
Bank Asset Concentration Not Necessarily Cause for Worry
U.S. banking assets have become substantially more concentrated within a few large institutions. However, decreasing relative rates of big-bank growth and of idiosyncratic volatility?an indicator of individual bank susceptibility to shocks and a resulting redistribution of assets?suggest a reduction in systemic financial system risk through contagion.
Working Paper
Economic policy uncertainty and the credit channel: aggregate and bank level U.S. evidence over several decades
Economic policy uncertainty aspects decisions of households, businesses, policy makers and financial intermediaries. We first examine the impact of economic policy uncertainty on aggregate bank credit growth. Then we analyze commercial bank entity level data to gauge the effects of policy uncertainty on financial intermediaries' lending. We exploit the cross-sectional heterogeneity to back out indirect evidence of its effects on businesses and households. We ask (i) whether, conditional on standard macroeconomic controls, economic policy uncertainty affected bank level credit growth, and (ii) ...
Journal Article
Blockchain Technology Disrupting Traditional Records Systems
Dallas Fed Mobility and Engagement Index Gives Insight into COVID-19’s Economic Impact
To gain insight into the economic impact of the pandemic, we developed an index of mobility and engagement, based on geolocation data collected from a large sample of mobile devices.
Report
Regulatory Burden Rising
U.S. commercial banks face growing regulatory requirements and complexity, especially with the Dodd?Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010, which was intended to rein in excesses of the largest banks. The nation would be better served by a regulatory framework that more fully accounts for the operational differences between small and large banks.
Working Paper
Payments Crises and Consequences
Banking-system shutdowns during contractions scar economies. Four times in the lastforty years, governors suspended payments from state-insured depository institutions. Suspensionsof payments in Nebraska (1983), Ohio (1985), and Maryland (1985), which wereshort and occurred during expansions, had little measurable impact on macroeconomic aggregates.Rhode Island’s payments crisis (1991), which was prolonged and occurred duringa recession, lengthened and deepened the downturn. Unemployment increased. Outputdeclined, possibly permanently relative to what might have been. We document these ...
Working Paper
Heterogeneous bank lending responses to monetary policy: new evidence from a real-time identification
We present new evidence on how heterogeneity in banks interacts with monetary policy changes to impact bank lending, at both the bank and U.S. state levels. Using an exogenous policy measure identified from narratives on FOMC intentions and real-time economic forecasts, we find much stronger dynamic effects and greater heterogeneity in U.S. bank lending responses than that found in previous research based on realized federal funds rate changes. Our findings suggest that studies using realized monetary policy changes confound monetary policy?s effects with those of changes in expected ...
Working Paper
The rank effect for commodities
We uncover a large and significant low-minus-high rank effect for commodities across two centuries. There is nothing anomalous about this anomaly, nor is it clear how it can be arbitraged away. Using nonparametric econometric methods, we demonstrate that such a rank effect is a necessary consequence of a stationary relative asset price distribution. We confirm this prediction using daily commodity futures prices and show that a portfolio consisting of lower-ranked, lower-priced commodities yields 23% higher annual returns than a portfolio consisting of higher-ranked, higher-priced ...
Journal Article
The Macroeconomic Fallout of Shutting Down the Banking System
During the 2008–09 financial crisis, the U.S. government arranged bailouts of major banks to prevent a suspension of bank deposits, where banks cease paying checks and refuse depositors’ requests to withdraw funds. Although these bailouts likely helped firms and households continue to make payments, they have been debated due to potential moral hazard concerns as well as the high cost to taxpayers. Assessing the costs and benefits of preventing deposit suspensions is difficult, as nationwide bank suspensions have not occurred since the Great Depression.To circumvent this challenge, Qian ...