Search Results
Report
Modeling the evolution of age and cohort effects in social research
This paper proposes a new way of modeling age, period, and cohort effects that improves substantively and methodologically on the conventional linear model. The linear model suffers from a well-known identification problem: If we assume an outcome of interest depends on the sum of an age effect, a period effect, and a cohort effect, then it is impossible to distinguish these three separate effects because, for any individual, birth year = current year ? age. Less well appreciated is that the model also suffers from a conceptual problem: It assumes that the influence of age is the same in all ...
Discussion Paper
How Do the Fed's MBS Purchases Affect Credit Allocation?
It is sometimes said that the Federal Reserve should not engage in “credit allocation.” But what does credit allocation actually mean? And how do current Fed policies affect the allocation of credit? In this post, we describe two separate ideas often associated with credit allocation. The first idea is that the Fed should not take credit risk, which taxpayers would ultimately have to bear. The second idea is that the Fed’s actions should not influence the flow of credit to particular sectors. We consider whether the Fed’s holdings of agency mortgage-backed securities (MBS) could ...
Report
Worker Betas: Five Facts about Systematic Earnings Risk
The magnitude of and heterogeneity in systematic earnings risk has important implications for various theories in macro, labor, and ?nancial economics. Using administrative data, we document how the aggregate risk exposure of individual earnings to GDP and stock returns varies across gender, age, the worker?s earnings level, and industry. Aggregate risk exposure is U-shaped with respect to the earnings level. In the middle of the earnings distribution, aggregate risk exposure is higher for males, younger workers, and those in construction and durable manufacturing. At the top of the earnings ...
Working Paper
Inflation at the Household Level: Web Appendix
This appendix contains additional results on using scanner data to estimate inflation rates at the household level. There are three sections. Section 1 shows cross-sectional distributions of Fisher and Paasche inflation rates. Section 2 shows the evolution over time of measures of dispersion of Fisher and Paasche inflation rates. Section 3 shows cross-sectional distributions of two-year inflation rates measured with Fisher and Paasche indexes.
Working Paper
Monetary policy implementation with an ample supply of reserves
Methods of monetary policy implementation continue to change. The level of reserve supply—scarce, abundant, or somewhere in between—has implications for the efficiency and effectiveness of an implementation regime. The money market events of September 2019 highlight the need for an analytical framework to better understand implementation regimes. We discuss major issues relevant to the choice of an implementation regime, using a parsimonious framework and drawing from the experience in the United States since the 2007-2009 financial crisis. We find that the optimal level of reserve supply ...
Speech
Commodity derivatives markets and financial stability
Keynote remarks by Sam Schulhofer-Wohl at FIA Forum: Commodities 2023—Commodity Derivatives Markets in the Age of Uncertainty, Houston, Texas.
Newsletter
Bank Exposure to Commercial Real Estate and the Covid-19 Pandemic
The Covid-19 pandemic had an immediate and substantial impact on the commercial real estate (CRE) market—emptying workplaces, shopping centers, and hotels, thus affecting the cash flows of businesses occupying commercial space and in turn the ability of commercial space owners to meet their debt obligations.Delinquent CRE loans began to surface soon after the pandemic started and remain elevated in 2021. Broad loan delinquencies would represent a potential threat to bank capitalization and solvency, particularly for smaller banks that tend to have higher concentrations in CRE lending. ...
Working Paper
Measuring Job-Finding Rates and Matching Efficiency with Heterogeneous Jobseekers
Matching efficiency is the productivity of the process for matching jobseekers to available jobs. Job-finding is the output; vacant jobs and active jobseekers are the inputs. Measurement of matching efficiency follows the same principles as measuring a Hicks-neutral index of productivity of production. We develop a framework for measuring matching productivity when the population of jobseekers is heterogeneous. The efficiency index for each type of jobseeker is the monthly job-finding rate for the type adjusted for the overall tightness of the labor market. We find that overall matching ...
Discussion Paper
How Do the Fed's MBS Holdings Affect the Economy?
In our previous post, we discussed the meaning of the term “credit allocation” and how it relates to the Federal Reserve’s holdings of agency mortgage-backed securities (MBS). We concluded that the Fed’s MBS holdings do not pose significant credit risk but that the Fed does influence the relative market price of credit when it purchases agency MBS, and this indirectly influences decisions by investors. Today, we take the next step and discuss how the Fed’s MBS purchases affect the U.S. economy and, in particular, how the effect of MBS purchases can differ from the effect of ...
Working Paper
Monetary Policy Implementation with Ample Reserves
We offer a parsimonious model of the reserve demand to study the tradeoffs associated with various monetary policy implementation frameworks. Prior to the 2007–09 financial crisis, many central banks supplied scarce reserves to execute their interest-rate policies. In response to the crisis, central banks undertook quantitative-easing policies that greatly expanded their balance sheets and, by extension, the amount of reserves they supplied. When the crisis and its aftereffects passed, central banks were in a position to choose a framework that has reserves that are (1) abundant—by ...