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Report
A \\"New Normal\\"? The Prospects for Long-Term Growth in the United States
Aaron Steelman, director of publications, and John A. Weinberg, senior vice president and special advisor to the president, examine the claim that the U.S. economy has reached a "new normal" of roughly 2 percent annual growth. This has been the average growth rate since the end of the Great Recession, considerably lower than the post-World War II average. Proponents of the new normal hypothesis argue, among other things, that innovation has slowed and is unlikely to improve. They also believe that demographic trends pose serious problems for U.S. fiscal policy and will exert a drag on the ...
Journal Article
Opinion: Economics, uncertainty, and the environment
Why should a poorer population sacrifice some prosperity to aid wealther populations?
Briefing
The Role of Central Bank Lending in the Conduct of Monetary Policy
Central banks can extend credit in pursuit of different policy objectives, two of which are discussed in this Economic Brief. First, lending can be used to achieve interest rate control. Second, lending can be used to provide liquidity insurance. A narrow view of central bank lending emphasizes the first objective, in which subsidized credit to targeted market participants is not seen as essential. A broader view considers targeted lending as sometimes necessary. Which perspective is favored is largely, though not wholly, dependent on judgments about the prevalence of frictions that inhibit ...
Briefing
Unsustainable fiscal policy : implications for monetary policy
The debt of the U.S. government is at historically high levels, but how do we know whether debt levels are worrisome? This Economic Brief argues that the current fiscal position is not sustainable. Though financial markets seem unconcerned, for the time being, about U.S. fiscal health, as evidenced by low rates on Treasury securities, lawmakers should not be complacent. Expectations are liable to change as large fiscal imbalances persist, with potentially devastating consequences for the U.S. economy and monetary policy.
Journal Article
Competition among bank regulators
Working Paper
The adverse selection approach to financial intermediation: some characteristics of the equilibrium financial structure
This paper examines an adverse selection economy in which efficient resource allocation is supported by intermediary contracts (coalitions). Agents differ along an ex ante publicly observable dimension, so that the equilibrium arrangement yields a diverse set of financial arrangements among borrowers, lenders and intermediaries. Loans made by intermediaries would appear to be mispriced relative to a naive benchmark that ignores the (unobservable) adverse selection aspects of the environment. The model also yields an equilibrium mix of intermediated and direct finance which is broadly ...
Journal Article
Opinion: A New Payments Role for the Fed?
Journal Article
Firm size, finance, and investment
Working Paper
The coalition-proof core in adverse selection economies
We reexamine the core in the adverse selection insurance economy first studied by Rothschild and Stiglitz (1976). Defining blocking in a way that takes private information into account, the core is sometimes empty. We define the coalition-proof core as the set of allocations which are blocked only by allocations which are themselves blocked by coalition- proof allocations. This definition is closely related to Coalition Proof Nash Equilibrium, introduced by Bernheim, Peleg and Whinston (1987). We prove that the coalition-proof core consists of the Miyazaki allocation--the Pareto-optimal ...
Journal Article
Accounting for corporate behavior