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Series:Finance and Economics Discussion Series 

Working Paper
Pre-announcement effects, news, and volatility: monetary policy and the stock market

I examine pre-announcement and news effects on the stock market in the context of public disclosure of monetary policy decisions. The results suggest that the stock market tends to be relatively quiet--conditional volatility is abnormally low--on days preceding regularly scheduled policy announcements. Although this calming effect is routinely reported in anecdotal press accounts, it is statistically significant only over the past four to five years, a result that I attribute to changes in the Federal Reserve's disclosure practices in early 1994. The paper also looks at how the actual ...
Finance and Economics Discussion Series , Paper 2000-50

Working Paper
Misspecification versus bubbles in hyperinflation data: Monte Carlo and interwar European evidence

This paper analyzes tests of the Cagan hyperinflation-money demand model that have several advantages relative to those in the literature. They do not confound specification error with rational bubbles, are implementable with a linear procedure, and are frequently able to detect periodically collapsing bubbles that have challenged existing tests. After a Monte Carlo analysis, the tests are applied to data from hyperinflations in Austria, Germany, Hungary, and Poland. Strong evidence of model misspecification is found for Austria, while the model with a rational, explosive component well ...
Finance and Economics Discussion Series , Paper 1997-49

Working Paper
What did the credit market expect of Argentina default? Evidence from default swap data

This article explores the expectations of the credit market by developing a parsimonious default swap model, which is versatile enough to disentangle default probability from the expected recovery rate, accommodate counterparty default risk, and allow flexible correlation between state variables. We implements the model to a unique sample of default swaps on Argentine sovereign debt, and found that the risk-neutral default probability was always higher than its physical counterpart, and the wedge between the two was affected by changes in the business cycle, the U.S. and Argentine credit ...
Finance and Economics Discussion Series , Paper 2003-25

Working Paper
Learning and shifts in long-run productivity growth

Shifts in the long-run rate of productivity growth--such as those experienced by the U.S. economy in the 1970s and 1990s--are difficult, in real time, to distinguish from transitory fluctuations. In this paper, we analyze the evolution of forecasts of long-run productivity growth during the 1970s and 1990s and examine in the context of a dynamic general equilibrium model the consequences of gradual real-time learning on the responses to shifts in the long-run productivity growth rate. We find that a simple updating rule based on an estimated Kalman filter model using real-time data describes ...
Finance and Economics Discussion Series , Paper 2004-21

Working Paper
Modelling inflation dynamics: a critical review of recent research

In recent years, a broad academic consensus has arisen around the use of rational expectations sticky-price models to capture inflation dynamics. These models are seen as providing an empirically reasonable characterization of observed inflation behavior once suitable measures of the output gap are chosen; and, moreover, are perceived to be robust to the Lucas critique in a way that earlier econometric models of inflation are not. We review the principal conclusions of this literature concerning: 1) the ability of these models to fit the data; 2) the importance of rational forward-looking ...
Finance and Economics Discussion Series , Paper 2005-66

Working Paper
For Better and for Worse? Effects of Access to High-Cost Consumer Credit

I provide empirical evidence that the effect of high-cost credit access on household material well-being depends on if a household is experiencing temporary financial distress. Using detailed data on household consumption and location, as well as geographic variation in access to high cost payday loans over time, I find that payday credit access improves wellbeing for households in distress by helping them smooth consumption. In periods of temporary financial distress?after extreme weather events like hurricanes and blizzards?I find that payday loan access mitigates declines in spending on ...
Finance and Economics Discussion Series , Paper 2016-056

Working Paper
Earnings Shocks and Stabilization During COVID-19

This paper documents the magnitude and distribution of U.S. earnings changes during the COVID-19 pandemic and how fiscal relief offset lost earnings. We build panels from administrative tax data to measure annual earnings changes. The frequency of earnings declines during the pandemic were similar to the Great Recession, but the distribution was very different. In 2020, workers starting in the bottom half of the distribution were more likely to experience large annual earnings declines and a similar share of male and female workers had large earnings declines. While most workers experiencing ...
Finance and Economics Discussion Series , Paper 2021-052

Working Paper
Has Intergenerational Progress Stalled? Income Growth Over Five Generations of Americans

We find that each of the past four generations of Americans was better off than the previous one, using a post-tax, post-transfer income measure constructed annually from 1963-2022 based on the Current Population Survey Annual Social and Economic Supplement. At age 36–40, Millennials had a real median household income that was 18 percent higher than that of the previous generation at the same age. This rate of intergenerational progress was slower than that experienced by the Silent Generation (34 percent) and Baby Boomers (27 percent), but similar to that experienced by Generation X (16 ...
Finance and Economics Discussion Series , Paper 2024-007

Working Paper
Inferring the Shadow Rate from Real Activity

We estimate a shadow rate consistent with the paths of time series capturing real activity. This allows us to quantify the real effects of unconventional monetary policy in terms of equivalent short-term interest rate movements. We find that large-scale asset purchases and forward guidance had significant real effects equivalent of up to a four percent reduction in the federal funds rate.
Finance and Economics Discussion Series , Paper 2017-106

Working Paper
Online Estimation of DSGE Models

This paper illustrates the usefulness of sequential Monte Carlo (SMC) methods in approximating DSGE model posterior distributions. We show how the tempering schedule can be chosen adaptively, document the accuracy and runtime benefits o fgeneralized data tempering for “online” estimation (that is, re-estimating a model asnew data become available), and provide examples of multimodal posteriors that are well captured by SMC methods. We then use the online estimation of the DSGE model to compute pseudo-out-of-sample density forecasts and study the sensitivity ofthe predictive performance to ...
Finance and Economics Discussion Series , Paper 2020-023

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