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Using data from the Consumer Expenditure Survey we first document that the recent increase in income inequality in the US has not been accompanied by a corresponding rise in consumption inequality. Much of this divergence is due to different trends in within-group inequality, which has increased significantly for income but little for consumption. We then develop a simple framework that allows us to analytically characterize how within-group income inequality affects consumption inequality in a world in which agents can trade a full set of contingent consumption claims, subject to endogenous constraints emanating from the limited enforcement of intertemporal contracts (as in Kehoe and Levine, 1993). Finally, we quantitatively evaluate, in the context of a calibrated general equilibrium production economy, whether this set-up, or alternatively a standard incomplete markets model (as in Ayiagari 1994), can account for the documented stylized consumption inequality facts from the US data. JEL Klassifikation: E21, D91, D63, D31, G22
In this paper, we examine the cost of insurance against model uncertainty for the Euro area considering four alternative reference models, all of which are used for policy-analysis at the ECB.We find that maximal insurance across this model range in terms of aMinimax policy comes at moderate costs in terms of lower expected performance. We extract priors that would rationalize the Minimax policy from a Bayesian perspective. These priors indicate that full insurance is strongly oriented towards the model with highest baseline losses. Furthermore, this policy is not as tolerant towards small perturbations of policy parameters as the Bayesian policy rule. We propose to strike a compromise and use preferences for policy design that allow for intermediate degrees of ambiguity-aversion.These preferences allow the specification of priors but also give extra weight to the worst uncertain outcomes in a given context. JEL Klassifikation: E52, E58, E61
In this paper, we examine the cost of insurance against model uncertainty for the Euro area considering four alternative reference models, all of which are used for policy-analysis at the ECB.We find that maximal insurance across this model range in terms of aMinimax policy comes at moderate costs in terms of lower expected performance. We extract priors that would rationalize the Minimax policy from a Bayesian perspective. These priors indicate that full insurance is strongly oriented towards the model with highest baseline losses. Furthermore, this policy is not as tolerant towards small perturbations of policy parameters as the Bayesian policy rule. We propose to strike a compromise and use preferences for policy design that allow for intermediate degrees of ambiguity-aversion.These preferences allow the specification of priors but also give extra weight to the worst uncertain outcomes in a given context. JEL Klassifikation: E52, E58, E61.
This paper studies an overlapping generations model with stochastic production and incomplete markets to assess whether the introduction of an unfunded social security system leads to a Pareto improvement. When returns to capital and wages are imperfectly correlated a system that endows retired households with claims to labor income enhances the sharing of aggregate risk between generations. Our quantitative analysis shows that, abstracting from the capital crowding-out effect, the introduction of social security represents a Pareto improving reform, even when the economy is dynamically effcient. However, the severity of the crowding-out effect in general equilibrium tends to overturn these gains. Klassifikation: E62, H55, H31, D91, D58 . April 2005.
While much of classical statistical analysis is based on Gaussian distributional assumptions, statistical modeling with the Laplace distribution has gained importance in many applied fields. This phenomenon is rooted in the fact that, like the Gaussian, the Laplace distribution has many attractive properties. This paper investigates two methods of combining them and their use in modeling and predicting financial risk. Based on 25 daily stock return series, the empirical results indicate that the new models offer a plausible description of the data. They are also shown to be competitive with, or superior to, use of the hyperbolic distribution, which has gained some popularity in asset-return modeling and, in fact, also nests the Gaussian and Laplace. Klassifikation: C16, C50 . March 2005.
This paper computes the optimal progressivity of the income tax code in a dynamic general equilibrium model with household heterogeneity in which uninsurable labor productivity risk gives rise to a nontrivial income and wealth distribution. A progressive tax system serves as a partial substitute for missing insurance markets and enhances an equal distribution of economic welfare. These beneficial effects of a progressive tax system have to be traded off against the efficiency loss arising from distorting endogenous labor supply and capital accumulation decisions. Using a utilitarian steady state social welfare criterion we find that the optimal US income tax is well approximated by a flat tax rate of 17:2% and a fixed deduction of about $9,400. The steady state welfare gains from a fundamental tax reform towards this tax system are equivalent to 1:7% higher consumption in each state of the world. An explicit computation of the transition path induced by a reform of the current towards the optimal tax system indicates that a majority of the population currently alive (roughly 62%) would experience welfare gains, suggesting that such fundamental income tax reform is not only desirable, but may also be politically feasible. JEL Klassifikation: E62, H21, H24 .
Financial markets embed expectations of central bank policy into asset prices. This paper compares two approaches that extract a probability density of market beliefs. The first is a simulatedmoments estimator for option volatilities described in Mizrach (2002); the second is a new approach developed by Haas, Mittnik and Paolella (2004a) for fat-tailed conditionally heteroskedastic time series. In an application to the 1992-93 European Exchange Rate Mechanism crises, that both the options and the underlying exchange rates provide useful information for policy makers. JEL Klassifikation: G12, G14, F31.
Volatility forecasting
(2005)
Volatility has been one of the most active and successful areas of research in time series econometrics and economic forecasting in recent decades. This chapter provides a selective survey of the most important theoretical developments and empirical insights to emerge from this burgeoning literature, with a distinct focus on forecasting applications. Volatility is inherently latent, and Section 1 begins with a brief intuitive account of various key volatility concepts. Section 2 then discusses a series of different economic situations in which volatility plays a crucial role, ranging from the use of volatility forecasts in portfolio allocation to density forecasting in risk management. Sections 3, 4 and 5 present a variety of alternative procedures for univariate volatility modeling and forecasting based on the GARCH, stochastic volatility and realized volatility paradigms, respectively. Section 6 extends the discussion to the multivariate problem of forecasting conditional covariances and correlations, and Section 7 discusses volatility forecast evaluation methods in both univariate and multivariate cases. Section 8 concludes briefly. JEL Klassifikation: C10, C53, G1.
This paper analyzes dynamic equilibrium risk sharing contracts between profit-maximizing intermediaries and a large pool of ex-ante identical agents that face idiosyncratic income uncertainty that makes them heterogeneous ex-post. In any given period, after having observed her income, the agent can walk away from the contract, while the intermediary cannot, i.e. there is one-sided commitment. We consider the extreme scenario that the agents face no costs to walking away, and can sign up with any competing intermediary without any reputational losses. We demonstrate that not only autarky, but also partial and full insurance can obtain, depending on the relative patience of agents and financial intermediaries. Insurance can be provided because in an equilibrium contract an up-front payment e.ectively locks in the agent with an intermediary. We then show that our contract economy is equivalent to a consumption-savings economy with one-period Arrow securities and a short-sale constraint, similar to Bulow and Rogo. (1989). From this equivalence and our characterization of dynamic contracts it immediately follows that without cost of switching financial intermediaries debt contracts are not sustainable, even though a risk allocation superior to autarky can be achieved. JEL Klassifikation: G22, E21, D11, D91.
Default risk sharing between banks and markets : the contribution of collateralized debt obligations
(2005)
This paper contributes to the economics of financial institutions risk management by exploring how loan securitization a.ects their default risk, their systematic risk, and their stock prices. In a typical CDO transaction a bank retains through a first loss piece a very high proportion of the expected default losses, and transfers only the extreme losses to other market participants. The size of the first loss piece is largely driven by the average default probability of the securitized assets. If the bank sells loans in a true sale transaction, it may use the proceeds to to expand its loan business, thereby incurring more systematic risk. We find an increase of the banks' betas, but no significant stock price e.ect around the announcement of a CDO issue. Our results suggest a role for supervisory requirements in stabilizing the financial system, related to transparency of tranche allocation, and to regulatory treatment of senior tranches. JEL Klassifikation: D82, G21, D74 .
This paper makes an attempt to present the economics of credit securitization in a non-technical way, starting from the description and the analysis of a typical securitization transaction. The paper sketches a theoretical explanation for why tranching, or nonproportional risk sharing, which is at the heart of securitization transactions, may allow commercial banks to maximize their shareholder value. However, the analysis makes also clear that the conditions under which credit securitization enhances welfare, are fairly restrictive, and require not only an active role of the banking supervisiory authorities, but also a price tag on the implicit insurance currently provided by the lender of last resort. Klassifikation: D82, G21, D74. February 16, 2005.
We selectively survey, unify and extend the literature on realized volatility of financial asset returns. Rather than focusing exclusively on characterizing the properties of realized volatility, we progress by examining economically interesting functions of realized volatility, namely realized betas for equity portfolios, relating them both to their underlying realized variance and covariance parts and to underlying macroeconomic fundamentals.
From a macroeconomic perspective, the short-term interest rate is a policy instrument under the direct control of the central bank. From a finance perspective, long rates are risk-adjusted averages of expected future short rates. Thus, as illustrated by much recent research, a joint macro-finance modeling strategy will provide the most comprehensive understanding of the term structure of interest rates. We discuss various questions that arise in this research, and we also present a new examination of the relationship between two prominent dynamic, latent factor models in this literature: the Nelson-Siegel and affine no-arbitrage term structure models. JEL Klassifikation: G1, E4, E5.
What do academics have to offer market risk management practitioners in financial institutions? Current industry practice largely follows one of two extremely restrictive approaches: historical simulation or RiskMetrics. In contrast, we favor flexible methods based on recent developments in financial econometrics, which are likely to produce more accurate assessments of market risk. Clearly, the demands of real-world risk management in financial institutions - in particular, real-time risk tracking in very high-dimensional situations - impose strict limits on model complexity. Hence we stress parsimonious models that are easily estimated, and we discuss a variety of practical approaches for high-dimensional covariance matrix modeling, along with what we see as some of the pitfalls and problems in current practice. In so doing we hope to encourage further dialog between the academic and practitioner communities, hopefully stimulating the development of improved market risk management technologies that draw on the best of both worlds.
This study offers a historical review of the monetary policy reform of October 6, 1979, and discusses the influences behind it and its significance. We lay out the record from the start of 1979 through the spring of 1980, relying almost exclusively upon contemporaneous sources, including the recently released transcripts of Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meetings during 1979. We then present and discuss in detail the reasons for the FOMC's adoption of the reform and the communications challenge presented to the Committee during this period. Further, we examine whether the essential characteristics of the reform were consistent with monetarism, new, neo, or old-fashioned Keynesianism, nominal income targeting, and inflation targeting. The record suggests that the reform was adopted when the FOMC became convinced that its earlier gradualist strategy using finely tuned interest rate moves had proved inadequate for fighting inflation and reversing inflation expectations. The new plan had to break dramatically with established practice, allow for the possibility of substantial increases in short-term interest rates, yet be politically acceptable, and convince financial markets participants that it would be effective. The new operating procedures were also adopted for the pragmatic reason that they would likely succeed. JEL Klassifikation: E52, E58, E61, E65.
The Basel Committee plans to differentiate risk-adjusted capital requirements between banks regulated under the internal ratings based (IRB) approach and banks under the standard approach. We investigate the consequences for the lending capacity and the failure risk of banks in a model with endogenous interest rates. The optimal regulatory response depends on the banks' inclination to increase their portfolio risk. If IRB-banks are well-capitalized or gain little from taking risks, then they will increase their market share and hold safe portfolios. As risk-taking incentives become more important, the optimal portfolio size of banks adopting intern rating systems will be increasingly constrained, and ultimately they may lose market share relative to banks using the standard approach. The regulator has only limited options to avoid the excessive adoption of internal rating systems. JEL Klassifikation: K13, H41.
We develop an estimated model of the U.S. economy in which agents form expectations by continually updating their beliefs regarding the behavior of the economy and monetary policy. We explore the effects of policymakers' misperceptions of the natural rate of unemployment during the late 1960s and 1970s on the formation of expectations and macroeconomic outcomes. We find that the combination of monetary policy directed at tight stabilization of unemployment near its perceived natural rate and large real-time errors in estimates of the natural rate uprooted heretofore quiescent in inflation expectations and destabilized the economy. Had monetary policy reacted less aggressively to perceived unemployment gaps, in inflation expectations would have remained anchored and the stag inflation of the 1970s would have been avoided. Indeed, we find that less activist policies would have been more effective at stabilizing both in inflation and unemployment. We argue that policymakers, learning from the experience of the 1970s, eschewed activist policies in favor of policies that concentrated on the achievement of price stability, contributing to the subsequent improvements in macroeconomic performance of the U.S. economy.
Recent evidence on the effect of government spending shocks on consumption cannot be easily reconciled with existing optimizing business cycle models. We extend the standard New Keynesian model to allow for the presence of rule-of-thumb (non-Ricardian) consumers. We show how the interaction of the latter with sticky prices and deficit financing can account for the existing evidence on the effects of government spending. JEL Klassifikation: E32, E62.
In a plain-vanilla New Keynesian model with two-period staggered price-setting, discretionary monetary policy leads to multiple equilibria. Complementarity between the pricing decisions of forward-looking firms underlies the multiplicity, which is intrinsically dynamic in nature. At each point in time, the discretionary monetary authority optimally accommodates the level of predetermined prices when setting the money supply because it is concerned solely about real activity. Hence, if other firms set a high price in the current period, an individual firm will optimally choose a high price because it knows that the monetary authority next period will accommodate with a high money supply. Under commitment, the mechanism generating complementarity is absent: the monetary authority commits not to respond to future predetermined prices. Multiple equilibria also arise in other similar contexts where (i) a policymaker cannot commit, and (ii) forward-looking agents determine a state variable to which future policy respond. JEL Klassifikation: E5, E61, D78
The Basle securitisation framework explained: the regulatory treatment of asset securitisation
(2005)
The paper provides a comprehensive overview of the gradual evolution of the supervisory policy adopted by the Basle Committee for the regulatory treatment of asset securitisation. We carefully highlight the pathology of the new “securitisation framework” to facilitate a general understanding of what constitutes the current state of computing adequate capital requirements for securitised credit exposures. Although we incorporate a simplified sensitivity analysis of the varying levels of capital charges depending on the security design of asset securitisation transactions, we do not engage in a profound analysis of the benefits and drawbacks implicated in the new securitisation framework. JEL Klassifikation: E58, G21, G24, K23, L51. Forthcoming in Journal of Financial Regulation and Compliance, Vol. 13, No. 1 .