Search Results
Working Paper
Credit spreads as predictors of real-time economic activity: a Bayesian Model-Averaging approach
Employing a large number of financial indicators, we use Bayesian Model Averaging (BMA) to forecast real-time measures of economic activity. The indicators include credit spreads based on portfolios--constructed directly from the secondary market prices of outstanding bonds--sorted by maturity and credit risk. Relative to an autoregressive benchmark, BMA yields consistent improvements in the prediction of the cyclically-sensitive measures of economic activity at horizons from the current quarter out to four quarters hence. The gains in forecast accuracy are statistically significant and ...
Working Paper
The Fed Takes On Corporate Credit Risk: An Analysis of the Efficacy of the SMCCF
This paper evaluates the efficacy of the Secondary Market Corporate Credit Facility, a program designed to stabilize the U.S. corporate bond market during the COVID-19 pandemic. The program announcements on March 23 and April 9, 2020, significantly reduced investment-grade credit spreads across the maturity spectrum—irrespective of the program’s maturity-eligibility criterion—and ultimately restored the normal upward-sloping term structure of credit spreads. The Federal Reserve’s actual purchases reduced credit spreads of eligible bonds 3 basis points more than those of ineligible ...
Working Paper
Financial Heterogeneity and Monetary Union
We analyze the economic consequences of forming a monetary union among countries with varying degrees of financial distortions, which interact with the firms' pricing decisions because of customer-market considerations. In response to a financial shock, firms in financially weak countries (the periphery) maintain{{p}}cashflows by raising markups--in both domestic and export markets--while firms in financially strong countries (the core) reduce markups, undercutting their financially constrained competitors to gain market share. When the two regions are experiencing different shocks, common ...
Working Paper
Stress-testing U.S. bank holding companies: a dynamic panel quantile regression approach
We propose an econometric framework for estimating capital shortfalls of bank holding companies (BHCs) under pre-specified macroeconomic scenarios. To capture the nonlinear dynamics of bank losses and revenues during periods of financial stress, we use a fixed effects quantile autoregressive (FE-QAR) model with exogenous macroeconomic covariates, an approach that delivers a superior out-of-sample forecasting performance compared with the standard linear framework. According to the out-of-sample forecasts, the realized net charge-offs during the 2007-09 crisis are within the multi-step-ahead ...
Report
Retail inventories, internal finance, and aggregate fluctuations
We investigate the implications of capital market imperfections for inventory investment in retail trade, using a new source firm-level data--the micro data underlying the published Quarterly Financial Reports. An error-correction model that includes internal funds and forward-looking expectations for the stochastic process of sales is not rejected by the data. Both the cross-sectional and time-series results are consistent with the existence of significant capital market frictions in the retail trade sector: (1) for firms with limited access to capital markets, internal funds are a ...
Working Paper
Monetary Policy and Real Borrowing Costs at the Zero Lower Bound
This paper compares the effects of conventional monetary policy on real borrowing costs with those of the unconventional measures employed after the target federal funds rate hit the zero lower bound (ZLB). For the ZLB period, we identify two policy surprises: changes in the 2-year Treasury yield around policy announcements and changes in the 10-year Treasury yield that are orthogonal to those in the 2-year yield. The efficacy of unconventional policy in lowering real borrowing costs is comparable to that of conventional policy, in that it implies a complete pass-through of policy-induced ...
Report
Factor supplies and specialization in the world economy
A core prediction of the Heckscher-Ohlin theory is that countries specialize in goods in which they have a comparative advantage, and that the source of comparative advantage is differences in relative factor supplies. To examine this theory, we use the most extensive data set available and document the pattern of industrial specialization and factor endowment differences in a broad sample of rich and developing countries over a lengthy period (1970-92). Next, we develop an empirical model of specialization based on factor endowments, allowing for unmeasurable technological differences, and ...
Working Paper
Inflation Dynamics During the Financial Crisis
Firms with limited internal liquidity significantly increased prices in 2008, while their liquidity unconstrained counterparts slashed prices. Differences in the firms' price-setting behavior were concentrated in sectors likely characterized by customer markets. We develop a model, in which firms face financial frictions, while setting prices in a customer-markets setting. Financial distortions create an incentive for firms to raise prices in response to adverse demand or financial shocks. These results reflect the firms' reaction to preserve internal liquidity and avoid accessing external ...
Working Paper
Factor supplies and specialization in the world economy
A core prediction of the Heckscher-Ohlin theory is that countries specialize in goods in which they have a comparative advantage, and that the source of comparative advantage is differences in relative factor supplies. To examine this theory, we use the most extensive dataset available and document the pattern of industrial specialization and factor endowment differences in a broad sample of rich and developing countries over a lengthy period (1970-92). Next, we develop an empirical model of specialization based on factor endowments, allowing for unmeasurable technological differences and ...