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Working Paper
Fiscal Dominance and US Monetary: 1940–1975
Humpage, Owen F. (2016-12-21)
This narrative investigates the frictions that existed between the Federal Reserve?s monetary policies and the US Treasury?s debt-management operations from the onset of the Second World War through the end of the Federal Reserve?s even-keel actions in mid-1975. The analysis suggests that three factors can help explain why the Federal Reserve compromised the attainment of its statutorily mandated monetary-policy objectives for debt-management reasons: 1) the existence of an existential threat, 2) the fear that to do otherwise would create instability in the banking sector, and 3) the ...
Working Papers (Old Series) , Paper 1632

Report
Intermediary balance sheets
Adrian, Tobias; Boyarchenko, Nina (2013-11-01)
We document the cyclical properties of the balance sheets of different types of intermediaries. While the leverage of the bank sector is highly procyclical, the leverage of the nonbank financial sector is acyclical. We propose a theory of a two-agent financial intermediary sector within a dynamic model of the macroeconomy. Banks are financed by issuing risky debt to households and face risk-based capital constraints, which leads to procyclical leverage. Households can also participate in financial markets by investing in a nonbank ?fund? sector where fund managers face skin-in-the-game ...
Staff Reports , Paper 651

Report
Intermediary leverage cycles and financial stability
Adrian, Tobias; Boyarchenko, Nina (2012)
We present a theory of financial intermediary leverage cycles within a dynamic model of the macroeconomy. Intermediaries face risk-based funding constraints that give rise to procyclical leverage and a procyclical share of intermediated credit. The pricing of risk varies as a function of intermediary leverage, and asset return exposures to intermediary leverage shocks earn a positive risk premium. Relative to an economy with constant leverage, financial intermediaries generate higher consumption growth and lower consumption volatility in normal times, at the cost of endogenous systemic ...
Staff Reports , Paper 567

Working Paper
Diamond-Dybvig and Beyond: On the Instability of Banking
Gu, Chao; Monnet, Cyril; Nosal, Ed; Wright, Randall (2023-02-13)
Are financial intermediaries—in particular, banks—inherently unstable or fragile, and if so, why? We address this question theoretically by analyzing whether model economies with financial intermediation are more prone than those without it to multiple, cyclic, or stochastic equilibria. We consider several formalizations: insurance-based banking, models with reputational considerations, those with fixed costs and delegated investment, and those where bank liabilities serve as payment instruments. Importantly for the issue at hand, in each case banking arrangements arise endogenously. ...
FRB Atlanta Working Paper , Paper 2023-02

Report
The Countercyclical Benefits of Regulatory Costs
Mechanick, Alexander; Weber, Jacob P. (2024-07-01)
Legal academics, journalists, and senior executive branch officials alike have assumed that the cost of imposing new regulatory requirements is higher in severe recessions that drive the central bank’s policy rate to zero than in other times. This is not correct; the aggregate output costs of regulatory requirements decrease, not increase, in such recessions. This article is the first to analyze how this effect arises, drawing on both conventional macroeconomic models and empirical findings from the econometrics literature. Scholars and policymakers have likely missed the countercyclical ...
Staff Reports , Paper 1109

Working Paper
Financialization in Commodity Markets
Christiano, Lawrence J.; Chari, V. V. (2017-09-17)
The financialization view is that increased trading in commodity futures markets is associated with increases in the growth rate and volatility of commodity spot prices. This view gained credence because in the 2000s trading volume increased sharply and many commodity prices rose and became more volatile. Using a large panel dataset we constructed, which includes commodities with and without futures markets, we find no empirical link between increased futures market trading and changes in price behavior. Our data sheds light on the economic role of futures markets. The conventional view is ...
Working Paper Series , Paper WP-2017-15

Working Paper
Real Rigidities, Firm Dynamics, and Monetary Nonneutrality: The Role of Demand Shocks
Aruoba, S. Boragan; Oue, Eugene; Saffie, Felipe; Willis, Jonathan L. (2023-04-21)
We propose a parsimonious framework for real rigidities, in the form of strategic complementarities, that can generate real and nominal dynamics and match key features of the data across several literatures. Existing menu-cost models featuring strategic complementarities require unrealistically volatile shocks to idiosyncratic productivity to be consistent with pricing moments. We develop a simple menu-cost model with strategic complementarities along with idiosyncratic productivity and demand shocks that are disciplined by the data. This approach allows us to overcome previous criticism from ...
FRB Atlanta Working Paper , Paper 2023-03

Discussion Paper
Why Are Credit Card Rates So High?
Drechsler, Itamar; Jung, Hyeyoon; Peng, Weiyu; Supera, Dominik; Zhou, Guanyu (2025-03-31)
Credit cards play a crucial role in U.S. consumer finance, with 74 percent of adults having at least one. They serve as the main method of payment for most individuals, accounting for 70 percent of retail spending. They are also the primary source of unsecured borrowing, with 60 percent of accounts carrying a balance from one month to the next. Surprisingly, credit card interest rates are very high, averaging 23 percent annually in 2023. Indeed, their rates are far higher than the rates on any other major type of loan or bond. Why are credit card rates so high? In our recent research paper, ...
Liberty Street Economics , Paper 20250331

Report
The capital structure and governance of a mortgage securitization utility
Wright, Joshua; Tracy, Joseph; Mosser, Patricia C. (2013-10-01)
We explore the capital structure and governance of a mortgage-insuring securitization utility operating with government reinsurance for systemic or ?tail? risk. The structure we propose for the replacement of the GSEs focuses on aligning incentives for appropriate pricing and transfer of mortgage risks across the private sector and between the private sector and the government. We present the justification and mechanics of a vintage-based capital structure, and assess the components of the mortgage guarantee fee, whose size we find is most sensitive to the required capital ratio and the ...
Staff Reports , Paper 644

Working Paper
Is optimal monetary policy always optimal?
Gürkaynak, Refet S.; Davig, Troy A. (2015-07-30)
No. And not only for the reason you think. In a world with multiple inefficiencies the single policy tool the central bank has control over will not undo all inefficiencies; this is well understood. We argue that the world is better characterized by multiple ine?ciencies and multiple policy makers with various objectives. Asking the policy question only in terms of optimal monetary policy effectively turns the central bank into the residual claimant of all policy and gives the other policymakers a free hand in pursuing their own goals. This further worsens the tradeoffs faced by the central ...
Research Working Paper , Paper RWP 15-5

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