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Working Paper
Funding Liquidity Risk and the Cross-section of MBS Returns
This paper shows that funding liquidity risk is priced in the cross-section of excess returns on agency mortgage-backed securities (MBS). We derive a measure of funding liquidity risk from dollar-roll implied financing rates (IFRs), which reflect security-level costs of financing positions in the MBS market. We show that factors representing higher net MBS supply are generally associated with higher IFRs, or higher funding costs. In addition, we find that exposure to systematic funding liquidity shocks embedded in the IFRs is compensated in the cross-section of expected excess returns| agency ...
Journal Article
Decentralized Finance (DeFi): Transformative Potential and Associated Risks
Financial services in the crypto finance world are provided by a combination of centralized finance (CeFi) organizations and decentralized finance (DeFi). CeFi's are roughly similar to traditional financial intermediaries, but DeFi seeks to provide services using smart contracts (computer code) rather than an intermediary. DeFi's unusual structure creates some interesting potential but also raises new risks in addition to those already inherent in blockchains and crypto finance. This paper reviews some of the opportunities and risks.
Journal Article
An Introduction to Web3 with Implications for Financial Services
Web3 is used to describe the next iteration of the internet in which decentralized services are automated on blockchains. This paper describes the elements of Web3 including blockchains and tokens. It describes the largest decentralized finance protocols and some specific services where blockchain and tokens can be used. The paper concludes with a brief discussion of some regulatory challenges.
Journal Article
Case studies on disruptions during the crisis
The 2007-09 financial crisis saw many funding mechanisms challenged by a drastic reduction in market liquidity, a sharp increase in the cost of transactions, and, in some cases, a drying-up in financing. This article presents case studies of several key financial markets and intermediaries under significant distress at this time. For each case, the author discusses the size and evolution of the funding mechanism, the sources of the disruptions, and the policy responses aimed at mitigating distress and making markets more liquid. The review serves as a reference on the vulnerabilities of ...
Report
Counterparty risk in material supply contracts
This paper explores the sources of counterparty risk in material supply relationships. Using long-term supply contracts collected from SEC filings, we test whether three sources of counterparty risk?financial exposure, product quality risk, and redeployability risk?are priced in the equity returns of linked firms. Our results show that equity holders require compensation for exposure to all three sources of risk. Specifically, offering trade credit to counterparties and investing in relationship-specific assets increase the firm?s exposure to counterparty risk. Further, we show that contracts ...
Report
Prestigious stock exchanges: a network analysis of international financial centers
In this paper, we use methods from social network analysis to assess the relative importance of financial centers around the world. Using data from virtually the entire universe of global equity activity, we present two sets of complete rankings for up to forty-five separate locations for the 1990-2006 period. The first phase of our analysis evaluates international stock exchanges based on their ability to attract global initial public offerings (IPOs). The second phase compares the capacity of these exchanges to provide an efficient trading platform for cross-listed companies. U.S. exchanges ...
Report
COVID Response: The Commercial Paper Funding Facility
The Federal Reserve reestablished the Commercial Paper Funding Facility (CPFF 2020) in response to the disruptions in the commercial paper market triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent economic shutdowns. The CPFF 2020 was designed to support market functioning and provide a liquidity backstop for the commercial paper market. This paper provides an overview of the CPFF 2020, including detailing the facility’s design, documenting its usage, and describing its impact on commercial paper markets. In addition, we compare the market conditions and facility design in CPFF 2020 to that ...
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Information acquisition and financial intermediation
Informational advantages of specialists relative to households lead to disagreement between the two in an intermediated market. Although households can acquire additional signals to reduce the informational asymmetry, the additional information is costly, making it rational for households to limit the accuracy of the signals they observe. I show that this leads the equity capital constraint to bind more frequently, making the asset prices in the economy more volatile unconditionally. When disagreement between households and specialists is high, however, return volatility decreases. I find ...
Journal Article
Considerations on ESG Investment Implementation
Although interest in investing according to environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) standards is widespread, investment managers face a number of basic considerations with their portfolio choices. In this article, I give a high-level overview of these considerations within the context of the investor motivation: ESG values, ESG value, or both. These considerations include whether investors should exclude certain firms or use a positive tilt; how they could integrate ESG into an investment approach; the role of third-party ESG ratings; how they should measure and report their ...
Report
Zero Settlement Risk Token Systems
How might modern settlement systems with distributed ledger technology achieve zero settlement risk? We consider the design of settlement systems that satisfies two integral features: information-leakage proof and zero settlement risk. Legacy settlement systems partition private information but are vulnerable to settlement fails. A token system with dynamic ownership representation, or a dynamic ledger, can be designed to achieve both, as long as it employs a protocol that enforces two restrictions: programs must be immediately implemented and must involve transactions based on verifiable ...