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Report
Bank leverage limits and regulatory arbitrage: new evidence on a recurring question
Banks are regulated more than most firms, making them good subjects to study regulatory arbitrage (avoidance). Their latest arbitrage opportunity may be the new leverage rule covering the largest U.S. banks; leverage rules require equal capital against assets with unequal risks, so banks can effectively relax the leverage constraint by increasing asset risk. Consistent with that conjecture, we find that banks covered by the new rule shifted to riskier, higher yielding securities relative to control banks. The shift began almost precisely when the rule was finalized in 2014, well before it ...
Speech
Exploring Economic Conditions and the Implications for Monetary Policy
Eric Rosengren’s comments were delivered at the Boston Fed’s Annual Regional & Community Bankers Conference, and were a based on a speech he delivered on October 11, 2019.
Speech
Exploring Economic Conditions and the Implications for Monetary Policy
I would note that after two recent rate easings of 25 basis points each, monetary policy is already accommodative. Sustaining growth at potential depends on the U.S. consumer continuing to offset the weakness we are seeing in exports and business fixed investment. To me, it seems appropriate to continue to closely monitor incoming data to determine if the forecast of growth around potential is likely to be achieved, or if the risks I have outlined are indeed materializing.While the risks to the global and U.S. economies remain, there are also risks to easing too aggressively, as I’ve ...
Working Paper
Banks' search for yield in the low interest rate environment: a tale of regulatory adaptation
This paper examines whether the low interest rate environment that has prevailed since the Great Recession has compelled banks to reach for yield. It is important to recognize that banks can take on a variety of risks that offer higher yields today but incur different forms of future losses. Some losses, such as mark-to-market losses due to yield increases, can be avoided with accounting treatments whereas others, chiefly credit losses, cannot. A simple model shows that a bank?s incentive to take on risks for which potential future losses can be managed, such as interest rate risk, is ...
Working Paper
U. S. monetary policy and emerging market credit cycles
Foreign banks? lending to firms in emerging market economies (EMEs) is large and denominated primarily in U.S. dollars. This creates a direct connection between U.S. monetary policy and EME credit cycles. We estimate that over a typical U.S. monetary easing cycle, EME borrowers face a 32-percentage-point greater increase in the volume of loans issued by foreign banks than borrowers from developed markets face, with a similarly large effect upon reversal of the U.S. monetary policy stance. This result is robust across different geographical regions and industries, and holds for non-U.S. ...