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The European Central Bank
(2007)
The establishment of the ECB and with it the launch of the euro has arguably been a unique endeavor in economic history, representing an important experiment in central banking. This note aims to summarize some of the main lessons learned from this experiment and sketch some of the prospects for the ECB. It is written for "The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics", 2nd edition. JEL Classification: E52, E58
We provide a simple and intuitive measure of interdependence of asset returns and/or volatilities. In particular, we formulate and examine precise and separate measures of return spillovers and volatility spillovers. Our framework facilitates study of both non-crisis and crisis episodes, including trends and bursts in spillovers, and both turn out to be empirically important. In particular, in an analysis of sixteen global equity markets from the early 1990s to the present, we find striking evidence of divergent behavior in the dynamics of return spillovers vs. volatility spillovers: Return spillovers display a gently increasing trend but no bursts, whereas volatility spillovers display no trend but clear bursts. JEL Classification: F30, G15, F36
Regional inflation dynamics within and across Euro area countries and a comparison with the US
(2006)
We investigate co-movements and heterogeneity in inflation dynamics of different regions within and across euro area countries using a novel disaggregate dataset to improve the understanding of inflation differentials in the European Monetary Union. We employ a model where regional inflation dynamics are explained by common euro area and country specific factors as well as an idiosyncratic regional component. Our findings indicate a substantial common area wide component, that can be related to the common monetary policy in the euro area and to external developments, in particular exchange rate movements and changes in oil prices. The effects of the area wide factors differ across regions, however. We relate these differences to structural economic characteristics of the various regions. We also find a substantial national component. Our findings do not differ substantially before and after the formal introduction of the euro in 1999, suggesting that convergence has largely taken place before the mid 90s. Analysing US regional inflation developments yields similar results regarding the relevance of common US factors. Finally, we find that disaggregate regional inflation information, as summarised by the area wide factors, is important in explaining aggregate euro area and US inflation rates, even after conditioning on macroeconomic variables. Therefore, monitoring regional inflation rates within euro area countries can enhance the monetary policy maker’s understanding of aggregate area wide inflation dynamics. JEL Classification: E31, E52, E58, C33
This paper presents a simple new method for estimating the size of ‘wealth effects’ on aggregate consumption. The method exploits the well-documented sluggishness of consumption growth (often interpreted as ‘habits’ in the asset pricing literature) to distinguish between short-run and long-run wealth effects. In U.S. data, we estimate that the immediate (next-quarter) marginal propensity to consume from a $1 change in housing wealth is about 2 cents, with a final long-run effect around 9 cents. Consistent with several recent studies, we find a housing wealth effect that is substantially larger than the stock wealth effect. We believe that our approach is preferable to the currently popular cointegrationbased estimation methods, because neither theory nor evidence justifies faith in the existence of a stable cointegrating vector. JEL Classification: E21, E32, C22
We show theoretically that income redistribution benefits borrowingconstrained individuals more than is implied by standard relative-income and uninsurable-risk considerations. Empirically, we find in international opinion-survey data that younger and lower-income individuals express stronger support for government redistribution in countries where consumer credit is less easily available. This evidence supports our theoretical perspective if such individuals are more strongly affected by tighter credit supply, in that expectations of higher incomes in the future increase their propensity to borrow. JEL Classification: E21
We study the relation between the credit cycle and macro economic fundamentals in an intensity based framework. Using rating transition and default data of U.S. corporates from Standard and Poor’s over the period 1980–2005 we directly estimate the credit cycle from the micro rating data. We relate this cycle to the business cycle, bank lending conditions, and financial market variables. In line with earlier studies, these variables appear to explain part of the credit cycle. As our main contribution, we test for the correct dynamic specification of these models. In all cases, the hypothesis of correct dynamic specification is strongly rejected. Moreover, accounting for dynamic mis-specification, many of the variables thought to explain the credit cycle, turn out to be insignificant. The main exceptions are GDP growth, and to some extent stock returns and stock return volatilities. Their economic significance appears low, however. This raises the puzzle of what macro-economic fundamentals explain default and rating dynamics. JEL Classification: G11, G21
We examine the empirical predictions of a real option-pricing model using a large sample of data on mergers and acquisitions in the U.S. banking sector. We provide estimates for the option value that the target bank has in waiting for a higher bid instead of accepting an initial tender offer. We find empirical support for a model that estimates the value of an option to wait in accepting an initial tender offer. Market prices reflect a premium for the option to wait to accept an offer that has a mean value of almost 12.5% for a sample of 424 mergers and acquisitions between 1997 and 2005 in the U.S. banking industry. Regression analysis reveals that the option price is related to both the price to book market and the free cash flow of target banks. We conclude that it is certainly in the shareholders best interest if subsequent offers are awaited. JEL Classification: G34, C10
Deviations from normality in financial return series have led to the development of alternative portfolio selection models. One such model is the downside risk model, whereby the investor maximizes his return given a downside risk constraint. In this paper we empirically observe the international equity allocation for the downside risk investor using 9 international markets’ returns over the last 34 years. The results are stable for various robustness checks. Investors may think globally, but instead act locally, due to greater downside risk. The results provide an alternative view of the home bias phenomenon, documented in international financial markets. JEL Classification: G11, G12, G15
The paper constructs a global monetary aggregate, namely the sum of the key monetary aggregates of the G5 economies (US, Euro area, Japan, UK, and Canada), and analyses its indicator properties for global output and inflation. Using a structural VAR approach we find that after a monetary policy shock output declines temporarily, with the downward effect reaching a peak within the second year, and the global monetary aggregate drops significantly. In addition, the price level rises permanently in response to a positive shock to the global liquidity aggregate. The similarity of our results with those found in country studies might supports the use of a global monetary aggregate as a summary measure of worldwide monetary trends. JEL Classification: E52, F01
The effects of public policy programs which aim at internalizing spill-overs due to successful innovation are analyzed in a sequential double-sided moral hazard doublesided adverse selection framework. The central focus lies in analyzing their impact on contract design. We show that in our framework only ex post grants are a robust instrument for implementing the first-best situation, whereas the success of guarantee programs, ex ante grants and some types of investment grants depends strongly on the characteristics of the project: in certain cases they not only give no further incentives but even destroy contract mechanisms and so worsen the outcome. JEL Classification: D82, G24, G32, H25, H81
We propose a new decision criterion under risk in which people extract both utility from anticipatory feelings ex ante and disutility from disappointment ex post. The decision maker chooses his degree of optimism, given that more optimism raises both the utility of ex ante feelings and the risk of disappointment ex post. We characterize the optimal beliefs and the preferences under risk generated by this mental process and apply this criterion to a simple portfolio choice/insurance problem. We show that these preferences are consistent with the preference reversal in the Allais’ paradoxes and predict that the decision maker takes on less risk compared to an expected utility maximizer. This speaks to the equity premium puzzle and to the preference for low deductibles in insurance contracts. Keywords: endogenous beliefs, anticipatory feeling, disappointment, optimism, decision under risk, portfolio allocation.
Informational economies of scope between lending and underwriting are a mixed blessing for universal banks. While they can reduce the cost of raising capital for a firm, they also reduce incentives in the underwriting business. We show that tying lending and underwriting helps to overcome this dilemma. First, risky debt in tied deals works as a bond to increase underwriting incentives. Second, with limitations on contracting, tying reduces the underwriting rents as the additional incentives from debt can substitute for monetary incentives. In addition, reducing the yield on the tied debt is a means to pay for the rent in the underwriting business and to transfer informational benefits to the client. Thus, tying is a double edged sword for universal banks. It helps to compete against specialized investment banks, but it can reduce the rent to be earned in investment banking when universal banks compete against each other. We derive several empirical predictions regarding the characteristics of tied deals. JEL Classification: G21, G24, D49
Mutual insurance companies and stock insurance companies are different forms of organized risk sharing: policyholders and owners are two distinct groups in a stock insurer, while they are one and the same in a mutual. This distinction is relevant to raising capital, selling policies, and sharing risk in the presence of financial distress. Up-front capital is necessary for a stock insurer to offer insurance at a fair premium, but not for a mutual. In the presence of an ownermanager conflict, holding capital is costly. Free-rider and commitment problems limit the degree of capitalization that a stock insurer can obtain. The mutual form, by tying sales of policies to the provision of capital, can overcome these problems at the potential cost of less diversified owners. JEL Classification: G22, G32
This study analyzes the short-term dynamic spillovers between the futures returns on the DAX, the DJ Eurostoxx 50 and the FTSE 100. It also examines whether economic news is one source of international stock return co-movements. In particular, we test whether stock market interdependencies are attributable to reactions of foreign traders to public economic information. Moreover, we analyze whether cross-market linkages remain the same or whether they do increase during periods in which economic news is released in one of the countries. Our main results can be summarized as follows: (i) there are clear short term international dynamic interactions among the European stock futures markets; (ii) foreign economic news affects domestic returns; (iii) futures returns adjust to news immediately; (iv) announcement timing of macroeconomic news matters; (v) stock market dynamic interactions do not increase at the time of the release of economic news; (vi) foreign investors react to the content of the news itself more than to the response of the domestic market to the national news; and (vii) contemporaneous correlation between futures returns changes at the time of macroeconomic releases. JEL Classification: G14, G15
A resampling method based on the bootstrap and a bias-correction step is developed for improving the Value-at-Risk (VaR) forecasting ability of the normal-GARCH model. Compared to the use of more sophisticated GARCH models, the new method is fast, easy to implement, numerically reliable, and, except for having to choose a window length L for the bias-correction step, fully data driven. The results for several different financial asset returns over a long out-of-sample forecasting period, as well as use of simulated data, strongly support use of the new method, and the performance is not sensitive to the choice of L. Klassifizierung: C22, C53, C63, G12
We evaluate the asset pricing implications of a class of models in which risk sharing is imperfect because of the limited enforcement of intertemporal contracts. Lustig (2004) has shown that in such a model the asset pricing kernel can be written as a simple function of the aggregate consumption growth rate and the growth rate of consumption of the set of households that do not face binding enforcement constraints in that state of the world. These unconstrained households have lower consumption growth rates than constrained households, i.e. they are located in the lower tail of the crosssectional consumption growth distribution. We use household consumption data from the U.S. Consumer Expenditure Survey to estimate the pricing kernel implied by the model and to evaluate its performance in pricing aggregate risk. We employ the same data to construct aggregate consumption and to derive the standard complete markets pricing kernel. We find that the limited enforcement pricing kernel generates a market price of risk that is substantially larger than the standard complete markets asset pricing kernel. Klassifizierung: G12, D53, D52, E44
In this paper we quantitatively characterize the optimal capital and labor income tax in an overlapping generations model with idiosyncratic, uninsurable income shocks, where households also differ permanently with respect to their ability to generate income. The welfare criterion we employ is ex-ante (before ability is realized) expected (with respect to uninsurable productivity shocks) utility of a newborn in a stationary equilibrium. Embedded in this welfare criterion is a concern of the policy maker for insurance against idiosyncratic shocks and redistribution among agents of different abilities. Such insurance and redistribution can be achieved by progressive labor income taxes or taxation of capital income, or both. The policy maker has then to trade off these concerns against the standard distortions these taxes generate for the labor supply and capital accumulation decision. We find that the optimal capital income tax rate is not only positive, but is significantly positive. The optimal (marginal and average) tax rate on capital is 36%, in conjunction with a progressive labor income tax code that is, to a first approximation, a flat tax of 23% with a deduction that corresponds to about $6,000 (relative to an average income of households in the model of $35,000). We argue that the high optimal capital income tax is mainly driven by the life cycle structure of the model whereas the optimal progressivity of the labor income tax is due to the insurance and redistribution role of the income tax system. Klassifizierung: E62, H21, H24
Assumptions about the dynamic and distributional behavior of risk factors are crucial for the construction of optimal portfolios and for risk assessment. Although asset returns are generally characterized by conditionally varying volatilities and fat tails, the normal distribution with constant variance continues to be the standard framework in portfolio management. Here we propose a practical approach to portfolio selection. It takes both the conditionally varying volatility and the fat-tailedness of risk factors explicitly into account, while retaining analytical tractability and ease of implementation. An application to a portfolio of nine German DAX stocks illustrates that the model is strongly favored by the data and that it is practically implementable. Klassifizierung: C13, C32, G11, G14, G18
Baby boomer retirement security: the roles of planning, financial literacy and housing wealth
(2006)
We compare wealth holdings across two cohorts of the Health and Retirement Study: the early Baby Boomers in 2004, and individuals in the same age group in 1992. Levels and patterns of total net worth have changed relatively little over time, though Boomers rely more on housing equity than their predecessors. Most important, planners in both cohorts arrive close to retirement with much higher wealth levels and display higher financial literacy than non-planners. Instrumental variables estimates show that planning behavior can explain the differences in savings and why some people arrive close to retirement with very little or no wealth. Klassifizierung: D91, E21
We use data from several waves of the Survey of Consumer Finances to document credit and debit card ownership and use across US demographic groups. We then present recent theoretical and empirical contributions to the study of credit and debit card behavior. Utilization rates of credit lines and portfolios of card holders present several puzzles. Credit line increases initiated by banks lead households to restore previous utilization rates. High-interest credit card debt co-exists with substantial holdings of low-interest liquid assets and with accumulation of retirement assets. Although available evidence disputes ignorance of credit card terms by card holders, redit card rates do not respond to competition. There is a rising trend in bankruptcy and delinquency, partly attributable to an increased tendency of households to declare bankruptcy associated with reduced social stigma, ease of procedures, and financial incentives. Co-existence of credit card debt with retirement assets can be explained through self-control hyperbolic discounting. Strategic default motives contribute partly to observed co-existence of credit card debt with low-interest liquid assets. A framework of “accountant-shopper” households, in which a rational accountant tries to control an impulsive shopper, seems consistent with both types of co-existence and with observed utilization of credit lines. JEL Classification: G11, E21