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Working Paper
A Currency Premium Puzzle
Standard asset pricing models reconcile high equity premia with smooth risk-free rates by inducing an inverse functional relationship between the mean and the variance of the stochastic discount factor. This highly successful resolution to closed-economy asset pricing puzzles is fundamentally problematic when applied to open economies: It requires that differences in currency returns arise almost exclusively from predictable appreciations, not from interest rate differentials. In the data, by contrast, exchange rates are largely unpredictable, and currency returns arise from persistent ...
Working Paper
Exchange Rate Dynamics and Monetary Spillovers with Imperfect Financial Markets
We use a two-country New Keynesian model with financial frictions and dollar debt in balance sheets to investigate the foreign effects of U.S. monetary policy. Financial amplification works through an endogenous deviation from uncovered interest parity (UIP) arising from limits to arbitrage in private intermediation. Combined with dollar trade invoicing, this mechanism leads to large spillovers from U.S. policy, consistent with the evidence. Foreign monetary policies that attempt to stabilize the exchange rate reduce welfare, and may exacerbate exchange rate volatility. We document ...
Discussion Paper
How Does U.S. Monetary Policy Affect Emerging Market Economies?
The question of how U.S. monetary policy affects foreign economies has received renewed interest in recent years. The bulk of the empirical evidence points to sizable effects, especially on emerging market economies (EMEs). A key theme in the literature is that these spillovers operate largely through financial channels—that is, the effects of a U.S. policy tightening manifest themselves abroad via declines in international risky asset prices, tighter financial conditions, and capital outflows. This so-called Global Financial Cycle has been shown to affect EMEs more forcefully than advanced ...
Report
Exchange rate dynamics and monetary spillovers with imperfect financial markets
We use a two-country New Keynesian model with financial frictions and dollar debt in balance sheets to investigate the foreign effects of U.S. monetary policy. Financial amplification works through an endogenous deviation from uncovered interest parity (UIP) arising from limits to arbitrage in private intermediation. Combined with dollar trade invoicing, this mechanism leads to large spillovers from U.S. policy, consistent with the evidence. Foreign monetary policies that attempt to stabilize the exchange rate reduce welfare and may exacerbate exchange rate volatility. We document empirically ...
Working Paper
How Did Pre-Fed Banking Panics End?
How did pre-Fed banking crises end? How did depositors? beliefs change? During the National Banking Era, 1863-1914, banks responded to the severe panics by suspending convertibility; that is, they refused to exchange cash for their liabilities (checking accounts). At the start of the suspension period, the private clearing houses cut off bank-specific information. Member banks were legally united into a single entity by the issuance of emergency loan certificates, a joint liability. A new market for certified checks opened, pricing the risk of clearing house failure. Certified checks traded ...
Working Paper
Too-Big-to-Fail before the Fed
?Too-big-to-fail? is consistent with policies followed by private bank clearing houses during financial crises in the U.S. National Banking Era prior to the existence of the Federal Reserve System. Private bank clearing houses provided emergency lending to member banks during financial crises. This behavior strongly suggests that ?too-big-to-fail? is not the problem causing modern crises. Rather, it is a reasonable response to the threat posed to large banks by the vulnerability of short-term debt to runs.