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Working Paper
Sudden Stops and Optimal Foreign Exchange Intervention
This paper shows how foreign exchange intervention can be used to avoid a sudden stop in capital flows in a small open emerging market economy. The model is based around the concept of an under-borrowing equilibrium defined by Schmitt-Grohe and Uribe (2020). With a low elasticity of substitution between traded and non-traded goods, real exchange rate depreciation may generate a precipitous drop in aggregate demand and a tightening of borrowing constraints, leading to an equilibrium with an inefficiently low level of borrowing. The central bank can preempt this deleveraging cycle through ...
Working Paper
Managing Stigma during a Financial Crisis
How should regulators design effective emergency lending facilities to mitigate stigma during a financial crisis? I explore this question using data from an unexpected disclosure of partial lists of banks that secretly borrowed from the lender of last resort during the Great Depression. I find evidence of stigma in that depositors withdrew more deposits from banks included on the lists in comparison with banks left off the lists. However, stigma dissipated for banks that were revealed earlier after subsequent banks were revealed. Overall, the results suggest that an emergency lending facility ...
Working Paper
The Neapolitan Banks in the Context of Early Modern Public Banks
I examine the Neapolitan public banks, a group of non-profit institutions that emerged in the late sixteenth century, in the context of the early public banks that existed elsewhere in early modern Europe. In terms of size and stability they compare well with their peers, in spite of a difficult political and economic environment. They were also remarkably financially advanced for their time. Their success is likely due to their ownership structure, governance, and well managed relationship with the monarchical authorities.
Working Paper
Foreign Exchange Reserves as a Tool for Capital Account Management
Many recent theoretical papers have argued that countries can insulate themselves from volatile world capital flows by using a variable tax on foreign capital as an instrument of monetary policy. But at the same time many empirical papers have argued that only rarely do we observe these cyclical capital taxes used in practice. In this paper we construct a small open economy model where the central bank can engage in sterilized foreign exchange intervention. When private agents can freely buy and sell foreign bonds, sterilized foreign exchange intervention has no effect. But we analytically ...
Working Paper
Sudden Stops in Emerging Economies: The Role of World Interest Rates and Foreign Exchange Intervention
Emerging economies are prone to ‘sudden stops’, characterized by a collapse in external borrowing and aggregate demand. Sudden stops may be triggered by a spike in world interest rates, which causes rapid private sector deleveraging. In response to a rise in interest rates, deleveraging is individually rational, but in the aggregate, the effect on the real exchange rate may tighten borrowing constraints so much that it precipitates a large crisis. A central bank can intervene by selling foreign reserves when world interest rates are rising, and prevent excess aggregate deleveraging. But ...