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Working Paper
Capital Taxation with Heterogeneous Discounting and Collateralized Borrowing
We study optimal long-run capital taxation in a closed economy with heterogeneity in agents' time-discount factors where borrowing is allowed but restricted by a collateral constraint. Financial frictions distort intertemporal optimization margins and the tax system serves a dual role: first, it is used to finance government consumption; second, it serves to alleviate the distortions arising from the binding collateral constraint. The discrepancy between the private and the social discount factors pushes for a subsidy on capital, while the discrepancy introduced by the collateral constraint ...
Working Paper
QE, Bank Liquidity Risk Management, and Non-Bank Funding: Evidence from U.S. Administrative Data
We show that the effectiveness of unconventional monetary policy is limited by how banks adjust credit supply and manage liquidity risk in response to fragile non-bank funding. For identification, we use granular U.S. administrative data on deposit accounts and loan-level commitments, matched with bank-firm supervisory balance sheets. Quantitative easing increases bank fragility by triggering a large inflow of uninsured deposits from non-bank financial institutions. In response, banks that are more exposed to this fragility actively manage their liquidity risk by offering better rates to ...
Working Paper
On Default and Uniqueness of Monetary Equilibria
We examine the role that credit risk in the central bank's monetary operations plays in the determination of the equilibrium price level and allocations. Our model features trade in fiat money, real assets and a monetary authority which injects money into the economy through short-term and long-term loans to agents. Short-term loans are riskless, but long-term loans are collateralized by a portfolio of real assets and are subject to credit risk. The private monetary wealth of individuals is zero, i.e., there is no outside money. When there is no default in equilibrium, there is indeterminacy. ...
Report
The Financial Stability Implications of Digital Assets
The value of assets in the digital ecosystem has grown rapidly amid periods of high volatility. Does the digital financial system create new potential challenges to financial stability? This paper explores this question using the Federal Reserve’s framework for analyzing vulnerabilities in the traditional financial system. The digital asset ecosystem has recently proven itself to be highly fragile. However, adverse digital asset market shocks have had limited spillovers to the traditional financial system. Currently, the digital asset ecosystem does not provide significant financial ...
Working Paper
Designing a Main Street Lending Facility
Banks add value by monitoring borrowers. High funding costs make banks reluctant to lend. A central bank can ease funding by purchasing loans, but cannot distinguish which loans require more or less monitoring, exposing it to adverse selection. A multi-tier loan pricing facility arises as the optimal institutional design setting both the purchase price and banks' risk retention for given loan characteristics. This design dominates uniform (flat) structure for loan purchases, provides the right incentives to banks and achieves maximum lending at lower rates to businesses. Both the multi-tier ...
Discussion Paper
Monitoring Risk From Collateral Runs
We present an estimate of the total amount of funds primary dealers can access from the intermediation of cash and securities through secured funding transactions (SFTs). We highlight how this activity can introduce an additional source of risk: the abrupt withdrawal of cash borrowers, which we call collateral runs.
Working Paper
Banks, Non Banks, and Lending Standards
We study how competition between banks and non-banks affects lending standards. Banks have private information about some borrowers and are subject to capital requirements to mitigate risk-taking incentives from deposit insurance. Non-banks are uninformed and market forces determine their capital structure. We show that lending standards monotonically increase in bank capital requirements. Intuitively, higher capital requirements raise banks’ skin in the game and screening out bad projects assures positive expected lending returns. Non-banks enter the market when capital requirements are ...
Working Paper
A Macroprudential Perspective on the Regulatory Boundaries of U.S. Financial Assets
This paper uses data from the Financial Accounts of the United States to map out the regulatory boundaries of assets held by U.S. financial institutions from a macroprudential perspective. We provide a quantitative measure of the regulatory perimeter—the boundary between the part of the financial sector that is subject to some form of prudential regulatory oversight and that which is not—and show how it has evolved over the past forty years. Additionally, we measure the boundaries between different regulatory agencies and financial institutions that operate within the regulatory perimeter ...
Working Paper
The Financial Stability Implications of Digital Assets
The value of assets in the digital ecosystem has grown rapidly, amid periods of high volatility. Does the digital financial system create new potential challenges to financial stability? This paper explores this question using the Federal Reserve’s framework for analyzing vulnerabilities in the traditional financial system. The digital asset ecosystem has recently proven itself highly fragile. However adverse digital asset markets shocks have had limited spillovers to the traditional financial system. Currently, the digital asset ecosystem does not provide significant financial services ...