Search Results
Discussion Paper
What Drove Recent Trends in Corporate Bonds and Loans Usage?
U.S. nonfinancial business debt increased substantially in recent years in both absolute and relative terms and is now near its record high. Figure 1 shows that most of this increase was due to significant growth in investment-grade (IG) corporate bonds and institutional leveraged loans, while high-yield (HY) corporate bonds and C&I loans largely remained steady.
Working Paper
Confidence intervals for long-horizon predictive regressions via reverse regressions
Long-horizon predictive regressions in finance pose formidable econometric problems when estimated using the sample sizes that are typically available. A remedy that has been proposed by Hodrick (1992) is to run a reverse regression in which short-horizon returns are projected onto a long-run mean of some predictor. By covariance stationarity, the slope coefficient is zero in the reverse regression if and only if it is zero in the original regression, but testing the hypothesis in the reverse regression avoids small sample problems. Unfortunately this only allows us to test the null of no ...
Working Paper
Tips from TIPS: the informational content of Treasury Inflation-Protected Security prices
Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities (TIPS) are frequently thought of as risk-free real bonds. Using no-arbitrage term structure models, we show that TIPS yields exceeded risk-free real yields by as much as 100 basis points when TIPS were first issued and up to 300 basis points during the recent financial crisis. This spread reflects predominantly the poorer liquidity of TIPS relative to nominal Treasury securities. Other factors, including the indexation lag and the embedded deflation protection in TIPS, play a much smaller role. Ignoring this spread also significantly distorts the ...
Discussion Paper
Projected Evolution of the SOMA Portfolio and the 10-Year Treasury Term Premium Effect
An earlier Feds note used staff models to provide a projection for the evolution of the SOMA portfolio and an estimate of the associated term premium effect (TPE) on the 10-year Treasury yield. That analysis relied on economic, financial, and monetary policy assumptions as of April 2017. With the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) announcing a change in its reinvestment policy in its September 2017 post-meeting statement, this note provides updated projections.
Working Paper
Why Does the Yield Curve Predict GDP Growth? The Role of Banks
We provide evidence on the effect of the slope of the yield curve on economic activity through bank lending. Using detailed data on banks’ lending activities coupled with term premium shocks identified using high-frequency event study or instrumental variables, we show that a steeper yield curve associated with higher term premiums (rather than higher expected short rates) boosts bank profits and the supply of bank loans. Intuitively, a higher term premium represents greater expected profits on maturity transformation, which is at the core of banks’ business model, and therefore ...
Working Paper
Term structure modelling with supply factors and the Federal Reserve's Large Scale Asset Purchase programs
This paper proposes and estimates an arbitrage-free term structure model with both observable yield factors and Treasury and Agency MBS supply factors, and applies it to evaluate the term premium effects of Federal Reserve's Large Scale Asset Purchase programs. Our estimates show that the first and the second large-scale asset purchase programs and the Maturity Extension program have a combined effect of about 100 basis points on the 10-year Treasury yield.
Working Paper
Macroeconomic Effects of Large-Scale Asset Purchases: New Evidence
We examine the macroeconomic effect of large-scale asset purchases (LSAPs) and forward guidance (FG) using a proxy structural VAR estimated on data through 2015, where the stance of the LSAP policy is measured using primary dealer expectations of the Federal Reserve's asset holdings. Monetary policy shocks are identified using instruments constructed from event study yield changes, and additional assumptions are employed to separately identify LSAP and FG shocks. We find that unexpected expansions in the Federal Reserve's asset holdings during the ZLB period between 2008 and 2015 had ...
Discussion Paper
The Effect of the Federal Reserve’s Securities Holdings on Longer-Term Interest Rates
In an effort to promote more accommodative financial conditions following the financial crisis of 2008 and the ensuing recession, and at a time when the conventional monetary policy tool--the federal funds rate--was at its effective lower bound, the Federal Reserve conducted large-scale asset purchases (LSAPs) and a maturity extension program (MEP). This note outlines a way to estimate by how much Federal Reserve securities holdings resulting from these purchase programs reduce longer-term interest rates. In this note, we focus on another channel through which LSAPs may affect the economy: ...
Working Paper
Why Does the Yield Curve Predict GDP Growth? The Role of Banks
We provide evidence on the effect of the slope of the yield curve on economic activity through bank lending. Using detailed data on banks' lending activities coupled with term premium shocks identified using high-frequency event study or instrumental variables, we show that a steeper yield curve associated with higher term premiums (rather than higher expected short rates) boosts bank profits and the supply of bank loans. Intuitively, a higher term premium represents greater expected profits on maturity transformation, which is at the core of banks' business model, and therefore incentivizes ...