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Report
The Effect of the Central Bank Liquidity Support during Pandemics: Evidence from the 1918 Influenza Pandemic
The coronavirus outbreak raises the question of how central bank liquidity support affects financial stability and promotes economic recovery. Using newly assembled data on cross-county flu mortality rates and state-charter bank balance sheets in New York State, we investigate the effects of the 1918 influenza pandemic on the banking system and the role of the Federal Reserve during the pandemic. We find that banks located in more severely affected areas experienced deposit withdrawals. Banks that were members of the Federal Reserve System were able to access central bank liquidity, enabling ...
Working Paper
Banking on the Boom, Tripped by the Bust: Banks and the World War I Agricultural Price Shock
How do banks respond to asset booms? This paper examines i) how U.S. banks responded to the World War I farmland boom; ii) the impact of regulation; and iii) how bank closures exacerbated the post-war bust. The boom encouraged new bank formation and balance sheet expansion (especially by new banks). Deposit insurance amplified the impact of rising crop prices on bank portfolios, while higher minimum capital requirements dampened the effects. Banks that responded most aggressively to the asset boom had a higher probability of closing in the bust, and counties with more bank closures ...
Working Paper
Quantitative Easing and Bank Risk Taking: Evidence from Lending
We empirically assess the effect of reserve accumulation as a result of quantitative easing (QE) on bank-level lending and risk taking activity. To overcome the endogeneity of bank-level reserve holdings to banks' other portfolio decisions, we employ instruments made available by a regulatory change that strongly influenced the distribution of reserves in the banking system. Consistent with theories of the portfolio substitution channel in which the transmission of QE depends in part on reserve creation itself, we document that reserves created in two distinct QE programs led to higher total ...
Working Paper
Assessing Targeted Macroprudential Financial Regulation: The Case of the 2006 Commercial Real Estate Guidance for Banks
In January 2006, federal regulators issued guidance requiring banks with specific high concentrations of commercial real estate (CRE) loans to tighten managerial controls. This paper shows that banks with concentrations in excess of the thresholds set in the guidance subsequently experienced slower growth in their CRE portfolios than can be explained by changes in bank or economic conditions. Moreover, banks above the CRE thresholds tended to have slower commercial and industrial loan growth but faster household loan growth following issuance of the guidance. The results highlight the ...
Working Paper
Lending to unhealthy firms in Japan during the lost decade: distinguishing between technical and financial health
We investigate the misallocation of credit in Japan associated with banks? evergreening loans, distinguishing between two types of firm distress: (perhaps temporary) financial distress and technical distress, which reflects weak operational capabilities, as indicated by low total factor productivity. We show that previous evidence related to firms? financial health is problematic due to the mixing of loan-demand and loan-supply effects. Using a direct measure of operational health, we provide unambiguous, direct evidence of evergreening behavior, as well as confirming evidence based on the ...