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Working Paper
A Global Lending Channel Unplugged? Does U.S. Monetary Policy Affect Cross-border and Affiliate Lending by Global U.S. Banks?
We examine how U.S. monetary policy affects the international activities of U.S. Banks. We access a rarely studied U.S. bank-level regulatory dataset to assess at a quarterly frequency how changes in the U.S. Federal funds rate (before the crisis) and quantitative easing (after the onset of the crisis) affects changes in cross-border claims by U.S. banks across countries, maturities and sectors, and also affects changes in claims by their foreign affiliates. We find robust evidence consistent with the existence of a potent global bank lending channel. In response to changes in U.S. monetary ...
Journal Article
Profits and balance sheet developments at U.S. commercial banks in 1996
U.S. commercial banks had another very good year in 1996. Profits posted strong growth, preserving the high levels of return on equity and return on assets that have prevailed over the past four years. Helping to boost profits were continued strong growth of interest-earning assets, a slight widening of the net interest margin, significant gains in noninterest income, and continued containment of noninterest expenses. Return on assets edged up despite a slight increase in provisioning for loan and lease losses relative to assets. Delinquency and charge-off rates stayed low for business loans ...
Working Paper
From indoctrination to the culture of change: technological progress, adaptive skills, and the creativity of nations
We distinguish learning in a static environment from that in a dynamic environment to show the existence of an important interaction between the development of new technologies and human capital accumulation. Since technological progress creates a more dynamic and uncertain environment, it not only increases the rewards to education and ability but also enhances adaptive skills. The latter in turn determine how effectively new technologies are utilized in production because they help the workforce to innovate and improve new technologies. Thus, the adaptive skills of a workforce are an ...
Working Paper
Alternatives in human capital accumulation: implications for economic growth
This paper demonstrates that considering alternative means of human capital accumulation, such as learning-by-doing, overturns the presumption that formal education is unconditionally beneficial for economic growth. It analyzes a model in which the average level of human capital creates externalities in future human capital accumulation and individuals can augment their human capital with work experience or education. The model shows that in the early stages of development, education enhances growth by creating a positive externality, and, in later stages, it may depress growth by leading to ...
Working Paper
Finance and macroeconomic volatility
Countries with more developed financial sectors experience less fluctuation in the growth of real per capita output, consumption and investment. However, the manner in which the financial sector develops matters. The relative importance of banks in the financial system is important in explaining consumption and investment volatility, and the proportion of credit provided to the private sector explains the volatility of consumption and output. The main results are generated using fixed-effects estimation with panel data from 70 countries covering the years 1956 through 1998.
Working Paper
Gender and Professional Networks on Bank Boards
Women are underrepresented on bank boards. Using a newly compiled dataset of bank board membership over the 1999-2018 period, we find that within-board professional networks are extensive, but female board members are significantly less connected than male directors, both in number and length of connections. We also find that professional networks play an important role in determining the appointment of bank board directors. Connections also positively impact compensation for female directors, especially connections to other women. These results suggest that there are differences in the ...
Working Paper
Gender and Social Networks on Bank Boards
We examine the effect of the social networks of bank directors on board gender diversity and compensation using a unique, newly compiled dataset over the 1999-2018 period. We find that within-board social networks are extensive, but there are significant differences in the size and gender composition of social networks of male vs female bank directors. We also find that samegender networks play an important role in determining the gender composition of bank boards. Finally, we show that those connected to male directors receive higher compensation, but we find no evidence that connections to ...
Working Paper
The accumulation of human capital: alternative methods and why they matter
We show how the ability to accumulate human capital through formal education and through a learning-by-doing process that occurs on the job affects the dynamic behavior of the human capital stock under a liquidity-constrained and a non-constrained case. When there are alternatives to formal schooling in the accumulation of human capital, investing resources in increasing school enrollment rates in low-income countries may not be the most efficient means of increasing the human capital stock. In addition, removal of liquidity constraints may not be sufficient to escape a development trap.
Working Paper
Estimating dynamic panel data models: a practical guide for macroeconomists
We use a Monte Carlo approach to investigate the performance of several different methods designed to reduce the bias of the estimated coefficients for dynamic panel data models estimated with the longer, narrower panels typical of macro data. We find that the bias of the least squares dummy variable approach can be significant, even when the time dimension of the panel is as large as 30. For panels with small time dimensions, we find a corrected least squares dummy variable estimator to be the best choice. However, as the time dimension of the panel increases, the computationally simpler ...