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Working Paper
Financing constraints and unemployment: evidence from the Great Recession
This paper exploits the differential financing needs across industrial sectors and provides strong empirical evidence that financing constraints of small businesses are important in explaining the unemployment dynamics around the Great Recession. In particular, we show that workers in small firms are more likely to become unemployed during the 2007-2009 financial crisis if they work in industries with high external financing needs. According to our estimates, eliminating financial constraints of small firms could add up to 850,000 jobs to the economy. We suggest that policies aimed at making ...
Speech
Bank capital: lessons from the U. S. financial crisis
Remarks by Eric S. Rosengren, President and Chief Executive Officer, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, at the Bank for International Settlements Forum on Key Regulatory and Supervisory Issues in a Basel III World, Bank of Korea, Seoul, Korea, February 25, 2013.
Journal Article
Resolving large, complex financial firms
How to best manage the failure of systemically important financial firms was the theme of a recent conference at which the latest research on the issue was presented. Here we summarize that research, the discussions that it sparked, and the areas where considerable work remains.
Journal Article
Not your father’s recovery?
There has been much talk about a disappointing recovery in the wake of the Great Recession?that this time it is much slower. Comparing features of this recovery to past recoveries casts some doubt on that view. The comparison is made using a scaled-down version of the sophisticated and powerful models that real forecasters actually use. Applying it to real GDP growth, unemployment, inflation, and the federal funds rate suggests that the recovery looks consistent with past recoveries?at least so far.
Working Paper
Liquidity creation without a lender of last resort: clearing house loan certificates in the Banking Panic of 1907
We employ a new data set comprised of disaggregate figures on clearing house loan certificate issues in New York City to document how the dominant national banks were crucial providers of temporary liquidity during the Panic of 1907. Clearing house loan certificates were essentially ?bridge loans? arranged between clearing house members. They enabled and were issued in anticipation of gold imports, which took a few weeks to arrive. The large, New York City national banks acted as private liquidity providers by requesting (and the New York Clearing House issuing) a volume of clearing house ...
Working Paper
Banking and financial crises in United States history: what guidance can history offer policymakers?
This paper assesses the validity of comparisons between the current financial crisis and past crises in the United States. We highlight aspects of two National Banking Era crises (the Panic of 1873 and the Panic of 1907) that are relevant for comparison with the Panic of 2008. In 1873, overinvestment in railroad debt and the default of railroad companies on that debt led to the failure of numerous brokerage houses, precursor to the modern investment bank. During the Panic of 1907, panic-related deposit withdrawals centered on the less regulated trust companies, which had only indirect access ...
Journal Article
Fed policy in the financial crisis: arresting the adverse feedback loop
An adverse feedback loop takes hold when a weakening financial system and a slowing economy feed off each other. A crisis or shock curtails lending, hobbling the real economy; the more production and employment falter, the more lending contracts. ; Arresting the adverse feedback loop could prove to be the seminal challenge of early 21st century monetary policymaking. Since sounding the alarm in January 2008, the Fed has taken a series of actions--many unprecedented--to prevent additional damage to financial markets and restore lending activity. These policies have had some success in ...
Speech
Churchill, Baruch, Lindsay Lohan, Congress and the Fed
Remarks at the Institute of International Bankers Annual Washington Conference, Washington, D.C., March 7, 2011 ; "I argued against the $600 billion extension [buying U.S. Treasuries] the voters on the FOMC approved last November. And I remain doubtful enough as to its efficacy that if at any time between now and June, it should prove demonstrably counterproductive, I will vote to curtail or perhaps discontinue it."
Journal Article
Liquidity risk and credit in the financial crisis
The 2007?08 financial crisis was the biggest shock to the banking system since the 1930s, raising fundamental questions about liquidity risk. The global financial system experienced urgent demands for cash from various sources, including counterparties, short-term creditors, and, especially, existing borrowers. Credit fell, with banks hit hardest by liquidity pressures cutting back most sharply. Central bank emergency lending programs probably mitigated the decline. Ongoing efforts to regulate bank liquidity may strengthen the financial system and make credit less vulnerable to liquidity ...
Journal Article
The financial crisis and inflation expectations
One measure of a successful monetary policy is its ability to anchor expectations about future inflation rates. Financial crises, such as that of 2008?09, can be considered natural experiments that test this anchoring. The effects of the crisis on inflation expectations were largely temporary in the United States, but longer-lasting in the United Kingdom. That is surprising because the United Kingdom had a formal inflation target during this period. Expectations may have been affected more because inflation stayed above the central bank?s target for extended periods following the crisis.