Search Results
Working Paper
Fiscal Implications of the Federal Reserve's Balance Sheet Normalization
The paper surveys the recent literature on the fiscal implications of central bank balance sheets, with a special focus on political economy issues. It then presents the results of simulations that describe the effects of different scenarios for the Federal Reserve's longer-run balance sheet on its earnings remittances to the U.S. Treasury and, more broadly, on the government's overall fiscal position. We find that reducing longer-run reserve balances from $2.3 trillion (roughly the current amount) to $1 trillion reduces the likelihood of posting a quarterly net loss in the future from 30 ...
Working Paper
Education's role in China's structural transformation
We explore education's role in improving the allocation of labor between China's agricultural and nonagricultural sectors and measure the portion of China's recent growth attributable to this channel. Building from micro-level estimates, we find that education's impact on labor reallocation between sectors accounts for about 9 percent of Chinese growth, whereas its impact on within-sector human capital growth explains only 2 percent. Our findings suggest that, when frictions cause large productivity gaps across sectors and returns to education are greater in higher-productivity sectors, ...
Working Paper
Fiscal Implications of the Federal Reserve's Balance Sheet Normalization
The paper surveys the recent literature on the fiscal implications of central bank balance sheets, with a special focus on political economy issues. It then presents the results of simulations that describe the effects of different scenarios for the Federal Reserve's longer-run balance sheet on its earnings remittances to the U.S. Treasury and, more broadly, on the government's overall fiscal position. We find that reducing longer-run reserve balances from $2.3 trillion (roughly the current amount) to $1 trillion reduces the likelihood of posting a quarterly net loss in the future from 30 ...
Working Paper
Hyperbolic discounting and uniform savings floors
Previous research suggests that, in partial equilibrium, individuals whose decision-making exhibits a present-bias--such as hyperbolic discounters who tend to over-consume--will be in favor of having a floor imposed on their savings. In this paper, I show it is quite difficult for the introduction of a savings floor to be Pareto-improving in general equilibrium. Indeed, a necessary condition for the floor to be Pareto-improving is that it is high enough to be binding for all individuals. Even in that case, because the equilibrium interest rate is affected by the level of the savings floor, ...
Working Paper
Reset price inflation and the impact of monetary policy shocks
A standard state-dependent pricing model implies very limited scope for using active monetary policy to stabilize real activity. Two modeling strategies which expand the role of monetary policy are time-dependent pricing and strategic complementarities between price-setting firms. These mechanisms have telltale implications for the persistence and volatility of "reset price inflation." Reset price inflation is the rate of change of all desired prices (including for goods that have not changed price in the current period). Using the micro data underpinning the CPI, we construct an empirical ...
Discussion Paper
Fiscal Implications of the Federal Reserve’s Balance Sheet Normalization
This Note summarizes analysis conducted in our recent FEDS working paper that seeks to understand the fiscal implications of the Federal Reserve's balance sheet normalization program.
Discussion Paper
Fiscal Implications of the Federal Reserve’s Balance Sheet Normalization
This Note summarizes analysis conducted in our recent FEDS working paper that seeks to understand the fiscal implications of the Federal Reserve's balance sheet normalization program.
Discussion Paper
Central bank liquidity facilities around the world
A core task of central banks is to provide liquidity to banks, with the goal of facilitating monetary policy implementation, ensuring the smooth functioning of the payment system, and promoting financial stability. While central banks around the world pursue these goals, the design of liquidity facilities differs across countries. This note provides an overview of liquidity facilities around the world that resemble the Federal Reserve’s discount window as well as intraday credit, comparing and contrasting setups in different countries.
Journal Article
Collaboration and Female Representation in Academic Fields
Women are well represented in some academic fields but notably underrepresented in others, including many STEM fields. Motivated by studies that show collaboration is more attractive to women than men, we investigate whether female participation across academic fields is related to how collaborative those fields are. Using panel data for 30 academic fields from 1975 to 2014, we find that one additional author on the average paper published in a field is associated with an increase of 2.5 percentage points in the female share of PhD recipients. This estimate implies that about 30 percent of ...
Report
Informational Rigidities and the Stickiness of Temporary Sales
We use unique price data to study how retailers react to underlying cost changes. Temporary sales account for 95% of price changes in our data. Simple models would, therefore, suggest that temporary sales play a central role in price responses to cost shocks. We find, however, that, in response to a wholesale cost increase, the entire increase in retail prices comes through regular price increases. Sales actually respond temporarily in the opposite direction from regular prices, as though to conceal the price hike. Additional evidence from responses to commodity cost and local unemployment ...