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Discussion Paper
Alternative measures of the Federal Reserve banks' cost of equity capital
The Monetary Control Act of 1980 requires the Federal Reserve System to provide payment services to depository institutions through the twelve Federal Reserve Banks at prices that fully reflect the costs a private-sector provider would incur, including a cost of equity capital (COE). Although Fama and French (1997) conclude that COE estimates are ?woefully? and ?unavoidably? imprecise, the Reserve Banks require such an estimate every year. We examine several COE estimates based on the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) and compare them using econometric and materiality criteria. Our results ...
Working Paper
Evaluating credit risk models
Over the past decade, commercial banks have devoted many resources to developing internal models to better quantify their financial risks and assign economic capital. These efforts have been recognized and encouraged by bank regulators; for example, the 1997 Market Risk Amendment (MRA) formally incorporates banks' internal, value-at-risk models into regulatory capital calculations. A key component in the implementation of the MRA was the development of standards, such as for model validation, that must be satisfied in order for banks' models to be used for regulatory capital purposes. ...
Working Paper
Heat waves, meteor showers, and trading volume: an analysis of volatility spillovers in the U.S. Treasury market
The market for U.S. Treasury securities operates around-the-clock from the three main trading centers of Tokyo, London, and New York. We examine this market for volatility spillovers using the methodology employed by Engle, Ito, and Lin (1990) for the foreign exchange market. We find meteor showers in Tokyo and London but not New York; i.e., volatility spills over into Tokyo and London from the other trading centers, but not into New York. We also find that lagged trading volume significantly impacts U.S. Treasury yield volatility for the overseas trading centers, although it does not ...
Journal Article
Patterns in the foreign ownership of U.S. banking assets
Journal Article
The economics of private equity investments: symposium summary
This Economic Letter summarizes proceedings of a symposium held at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco on October 19, 2007, sponsored by the Bank's Center for the Study of Innovation and Productivity (CSIP). The symposium brought together academic researchers and private equity practitioners, including representatives of private equity firms, investors in private equity, and lenders. Presentations are listed at the end, and some are available at http://www.frbsf.org/csip/research/symposium200710.pdf
Journal Article
Policy applications of a global macroeconomic model
In this Economic Letter, we summarize the key components of the GVAR model and discuss its usefulness for monetary policy applications and for credit risk management issues faced by financial institutions and their government supervisors. We argue that while the GVAR model is probably useful for credit risk management and could potentially have some use for bank supervision, it is unlikely to be as useful for monetary policy applications.
Journal Article
The current strength of the U.S. banking sector
Journal Article
Assessing supervisory scenarios for interest rate risk
A new proposal by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision for setting the amount of capital banks must hold against potential losses from interest rate risk uses only a few, very stylized scenarios. Analysis shows the proposed scenarios are extremely unlikely to occur. While they may be appropriate for setting bank capital guidelines, they are much less relevant for everyday risk management. Instead, using a modeling framework with a plausible range of interest rate scenarios would be more relevant to help banks manage their interest rate risk.
Journal Article
What is the Federal Reserve banks' imputed cost of equity capital?
The Federal Reserve System is an important participant in the nation's payments system, which is the infrastructure used for transmitting and settling payments between individuals, firms, and government entities. For example, as reported in the Federal Reserve System's 2004 annual report, the twelve Federal Reserve Banks processed about 16 billion checks, or about 45%, of the 37 billion checks written in 2003. In addition, the Federal Reserve provides fully electronic payments services, such as automated clearing house services. Since the Federal Reserve is required to charge fees for these ...
Journal Article
Do All New Treasuries Trade at a Premium?
In the Treasury market, the most recently issued security typically trades at a higher price than more seasoned but otherwise comparable securities. The difference is known as the ?on-the-run? premium. This phenomenon opens the question of whether a similar premium exists for all Treasury bonds. Examining yield spreads between pairs of inflation-protected securities, known as TIPS, that have identical maturities but different issue dates suggests that this is not the case: There is no on-the-run premium in the TIPS market at this time.