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We study a set of German open-end mutual funds for a time period during which this industry emerged from its infancy. In those years, the distribution channel for mutual funds was dominated by the brick-and-mortar retail networks of the large universal banks. Using monthly observations from 12/1986 through 12/1998, we investigate if cross-sectional return differences across mutual funds affect their market shares. Although such a causal relation has been established in highly competitive markets, such as the United States, the rigid distribution system in place in Germany at the time may have caused retail performance and investment performance to uncouple. In fact, although we observe stark differences in investment performance across mutual funds (and over time), we find no evidence that cross-sectional performance differences affect the market shares of these funds. Klassifikation: G 23
When a spot market monopolist has a position in a corresponding futures market, he has an incentive to deviate from the spot market optimum to make this position more profitable. Rational futures market makers take this into account when setting prices. We show that the monopolist, by randomizing his futures market position, can strategically exploit his market power at the expense of other futures market participants. Furthermore, traders without market power can manipulate futures prices by hiding their orders behind the monopolist's strategic trades. The moral hazard problem stemming from spot market power thus provides a venue for strategic trading and manipulation that parallels the adverse selection problem stemming from inside information. Klassifikation: D82, G13
We model the impact of bank mergers on loan competition, reserve holdings and aggregate liquidity. A merger changes the distribution of liquidity shocks and creates an internal money market, leading to financial cost efficiencies and more precise estimates of liquidity needs. The merged banks may increase their reserve holdings through an internalization effect or decrease them because of a diversification effect. The merger also affects loan market competition, which in turn modifies the distribution of bank sizes and aggregate liquidity needs. Mergers among large banks tend to increase aggregate liquidity needs and thus the public provision of liquidity through monetary operations of the central bank. Klassifikation: D43, G21, G28, L13
We present a multivariate generalization of the mixed normal GARCH model proposed in Haas, Mittnik, and Paolella (2004a). Issues of parametrization and estimation are discussed. We derive conditions for covariance stationarity and the existence of the fourth moment, and provide expressions for the dynamic correlation structure of the process. These results are also applicable to the single-component multivariate GARCH(p, q) model and simplify the results existing in the literature. In an application to stock returns, we show that the disaggregation of the conditional (co)variance process generated by our model provides substantial intuition, and we highlight a number of findings with potential significance for portfolio selection and further financial applications, such as regime-dependent correlation structures and leverage effects. Klassifikation: C32, C51, G10, G11
We estimate the effect of pension reforms on households' expectations of retirement outcomes and private wealth accumulation decisions exploiting a decade of intense Italian pension reforms as a source of exogenous variation in expected pension wealth. The Survey of Household Income and Wealth, a large random sample of the Italian population, elicits expectations of the age at which workers expect to retire and of the ratio of pension benefits to pre-retirement income between 1989 and 2002. We find that workers have revised expectations in the direction suggested by the reform and that there is substantial offset between private wealth and perceived pension wealth, particularly by workers that are better informed about their pension wealth. Klassifikation: E21, H55
We analyze the degree of contract completeness with respect to staging of venture capital investments using a hand-collected German data set of contract data from 464 rounds into 290 entrepreneurial firms. We distinguish three forms of staging (pure milestone financing, pure round financing and mixes). Thereby, contract completeness reduces when going from pure milestone financing via mixes to pure round financing. We show that the decision for a specific form of staging is determined by the expected distribution of bargaining power between the contracting parties when new funding becomes necessary and the predictability of the development process. To be more precise, parties choose the more complete contracts the lower the entrepreneur's expected bargaining power - the maximum level depending on the predictability of the development process. JEL Classification: G24, G32, D86, D80, G34
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
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 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
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
This paper employs a multi-country large scale Overlapping Generations model with uninsurable labor productivity and mortality risk to quantify the impact of the demographic transition towards an older population in industrialized countries on world-wide rates of return, international capital flows and the distribution of wealth and welfare in the OECD. We find that for the U.S. as an open economy, rates of return are predicted to decline by 86 basis points between 2005 and 2080 and wages increase by about 4.1%. If the U.S. were a closed economy, rates of return would decline and wages increase by less. This is due to the fact that other regions in the OECD will age even more rapidly; therefore the U.S. is “importing” the more severe demographic transition from the rest of the OECD in the form of larger factor price changes. In terms of welfare, our model suggests that young agents with little assets and currently low labor productivity gain, up to 1% in consumption, from higher wages associated with population aging. Older, asset-rich households tend to lose, because of the predicted decline in real returns to capital. Klassifizierung: E17, E25, D33, C68
When liquidity plays an important role as in times of financial crisis, asset prices in some markets may reflect the amount of liquidity available in the market rather than the future earning power of the asset. Mark-to-market accounting is not a desirable way to assess the solvency of a financial institution in such circumstances. We show that a shock in the insurance sector can cause the current value of banks’ assets to be less than the current value of their liabilities so the banks are insolvent. In contrast, if historic cost accounting is used, banks are allowed to continue and can meet all their future liabilities. Mark-to-market accounting can thus lead to contagion where none would occur with historic cost accounting. Klassifizierung: G21, G22, M41
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
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
We model the impact of bank mergers on loan competition, reserve holdings and aggregate liquidity. A merger changes the distribution of liquidity shocks and creates an internal money market, leading to financial cost efficiencies and more precise estimates of liquidity needs. The merged banks may increase their reserve holdings through an internalization effect or decrease them because of a diversification effect. The merger also affects loan market competition, which in turn modifies the distribution of bank sizes and aggregate liquidity needs. Mergers among large banks tend to increase aggregate liquidity needs and thus the public provision of liquidity through monetary operations of the central bank. JEL Classification: G24, G32, G34
In this paper, we show the pivotal role business owners play in estimating the importance of the precautionary saving motive. The fact that business owners hold higher-than-average wealth while facing higher income risk than other households leads to a correlation between wealth and labor income risk regardless of whether or not a precautionary motive is important. Using data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics in the 1980s and the 1990s, we show that within separate samples of both business owners and non-business owners the size of precautionary savings with respect to labor income risk is modest and accounts for less than ten percent of total household wealth. However, pooling together these two groups leads to an artificially high estimate of the importance of precautionary savings. Data from the Survey of Consumer Finances further confirms that precautionary savings account for less than ten percent of total wealth for both business owners and non-business owners. Thus, while a precautionary saving motive exists and affects all households, it does not give rise to high amounts of wealth in the economy, particularly among those households who face the most volatile labor earnings. Klassifizierung: D91
This paper compares the boom-bust cycle in Finland and Sweden 1984-1995 with the average boom-bust pattern in industrialized countries as calculated from an international sample for the period 1970-2002. Two clear conclusions emerge. First, the Finnish-Swedish experience is much more volatile than the average boom-bust pattern. This holds for virtually every time series examined. Second, the bust and the recovery in the two Nordic countries differ markedly more from the international pattern than the boom phase does. The bust is considerably deeper and the recovery comes earlier and is more rapid. We explain the highly volatile character of the Finnish and Swedish boom-bust episode by the design of economic policies in the 1980s and 1990s. The boom-bust cycle in Finland and Sweden 1984-1995 was driven by financial liberalization and a hard currency policy, causing large pro-cyclical swings in the real rate of interest transmitted via the financial sector into the real sector and then into the public finances. JEL Classification: E32, E62, E63
Several recent studies have addressed household participation in the stock market, but relatively few have focused on household stock trading behavior. Household trading is important for the stock market, as households own more than 40% of the NYSE capitalization directly and can also influence trading patterns of institutional investors by adjusting their indirect stock holdings. Existing studies based on administrative data offer conflicting results. Discount brokerage data show excessive trading to the detriment of stockholders, while data on retirement accounts indicate extreme inactivity. This paper uses data representative of the population to document the extent of household portfolio inertia and to link it to household characteristics and to stock market movements. We document considerable portfolio inertia, as regards both changing stockholding participation status and trading stocks, and find that specific household characteristics contribute to the tendency to exhibit such inertia. Although our findings suggest some dependence of trading directly-held equity through brokerage accounts on the performance of the stock market index, they do not indicate that the recent expansion in the stockholder base and the experience of the stock market downswing have significantly altered the overall propensity of households to trade in stocks or to switch participation status in a way that could contribute to stock market instability. JEL Classification: G110, E210
Market efficiency today
(2006)
This CFS Working Paper has been presented at the CFSsymposium "Market Efficiency Today" held in Frankfurt/Main on October 6, 2005. In 2004 the Center for Financial Studies (CFS) in cooperation with the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University, Frankfurt/Main established an international academic prize, which is to be known as The Deutsche Bank Prize in Financial Economics. The prize will honor an internationally renowned researcher who has excelled through influential contributions to research in the fields of finance and money and macroeconomics, and whose work has lead to practice and policy-relevant results. The Deutsche Bank Prize in Financial Economics has been awarded for the first time in October 2005. The prize, sponsored by the Stiftungsfonds Deutsche Bank im Stifterverband für die Deutsche Wissenschaft, carries a cash award of € 50,000. The prize will be awarded every two years and the prize holder will be appointed a "Distinguished Fellow" of the CFS. The role of media partner for the Deutsche Bank Prize in Financial Economics is to be filled by the internationally renowned publication, The Economist and the Handelsblatt, the leading German-language financial and business newspaper.
Multiple lenders and corporate distress: evidence on debt restructuring : [Version Juni 2006]
(2006)
In the recent theoretical literature on lending risk, the coordination problem in multi-creditor relationships have been analyzed extensively. We address this topic empirically, relying on a unique panel data set that includes detailed credit-file information on distressed lending relationships in Germany. In particular, it includes information on creditor pools, a legal institution aiming at coordinating lender interests in borrower distress. We report three major findings. First, the existence of creditor pools increases the probability of workout success. Second, the results are consistent with coordination costs being positively related to pool size. Third, major determinants of pool formation are found to be the number of banks, the distribution of lending shares, and the severity of the distress shock.
The present paper introduces a new dataset, the Rand American Life Panel (ALP), which offers several appealing features for an analysis of financial literacy and retirement planning. It allows us to evaluate financial knowledge during workers’ prime earning years when they are making key financial decisions, and it offers detailed financial literacy and retirement planning questions, permitting a finer assessment of respondents’ financial literacy than heretofore feasible. We can also compare respondents’ self-assessed financial knowledge levels with objective measures of financial literacy, and most valuably, we can investigate prior financial training which permits us to identify key causal links. By every measure, and in every sample we examine, financial literacy proves to be a key determinant of retirement planning. We also find that respondent literacy is higher when they were exposed to economics in school and to company-based financial education programs. JEL Classification: D91
We consider the advantages and disadvantages of stakeholder-oriented firms that are concerned with employees and suppliers as well as shareholders compared to shareholder-oriented firms. Societies with stakeholder-oriented firms have higher prices, lower output, and can have greater firm value than shareholder-oriented societies. In some circumstances, firms may voluntarily choose to be stakeholder-oriented because this increases their value. Consumers that prefer to buy from stakeholder firms can also enforce a stakeholder society. With globalization entry by stakeholder firms is relatively more attractive than entry by shareholder firms for all societies. JEL Classification: D02, D21, G34, L13, L21
Individuals are increasingly put in charge of their financial security after retirement. Moreover, the supply of complex financial products has increased considerably over the years. However, we still have little or no information about whether individuals have the financial knowledge and skills to navigate this new financial environment. To better understand financial literacy and its relation to financial decision-making, we have devised two special modules for the DNB Household Survey. We have designed questions to measure numeracy and basic knowledge related to the working of inflation and interest rates, as well as questions to measure more advanced financial knowledge related to financial market instruments (stocks, bonds, and mutual funds). We evaluate the importance of financial literacy by studying its relation to the stock market: Are more financially knowledgeable individuals more likely to hold stocks? To assess the direction of causality, we make use of questions measuring financial knowledge before investing in the stock market. We find that, while the understanding of basic economic concepts related to inflation and interest rate compounding is far from perfect, it outperforms the limited knowledge of stocks and bonds, the concept of risk diversification, and the working of financial markets. We also find that the measurement of financial literacy is very sensitive to the wording of survey questions. This provides additional evidence for limited financial knowledge. Finally, we report evidence of an independent effect of financial literacy on stock market participation: Those who have low financial literacy are significantly less likely to invest in stocks. JEL Classification: D91, G11, D80
We introduce a multivariate multiplicative error model which is driven by componentspecific observation driven dynamics as well as a common latent autoregressive factor. The model is designed to explicitly account for (information driven) common factor dynamics as well as idiosyncratic effects in the processes of high-frequency return volatilities, trade sizes and trading intensities. The model is estimated by simulated maximum likelihood using efficient importance sampling. Analyzing five minutes data from four liquid stocks traded at the New York Stock Exchange, we find that volatilities, volumes and intensities are driven by idiosyncratic dynamics as well as a highly persistent common factor capturing most causal relations and cross-dependencies between the individual variables. This confirms economic theory and suggests more parsimonious specifications of high-dimensional trading processes. It turns out that common shocks affect the return volatility and the trading volume rather than the trading intensity. JEL Classification: C15, C32, C52
We survey contributions to the analysis of household liabilities, highlighting relevant theoretical aspects and outlining how data sources may support empirical testing and measurement efforts. Specifically, we classify aspects of household debt, discussing the theoretical and policy relevance of heterogeneity across individual and country dimensions. Aiming to illustrate conceptual and measurement issues, we refer to the approaches and results of some recent relevant country-specific work on administrative and survey data, and we argue that research in this area would greatly benefit from availability of appropriately classified household liabilities data and of cross-country institutional information. JEL Classification: G1, E21
In this paper we revisit medium- to long-run exchange rate determination, focusing on the role of international investment positions. To do so, we develop a new econometric framework accounting for conditional long-run homogeneity in heterogeneous dynamic panel data models. In particular, in our model the long-run relationship between effective exchange rates and domestic as well as weighted foreign prices is a homogeneous function of a country’s international investment position. We find rather strong support for purchasing power parity in environments of limited negative net foreign asset to GDP positions, but not outside such environments. We thus argue that the purchasing power parity hypothesis holds conditionally, but not unconditionally, and that international investment positions are an essential component to characterizing this conditionality. Finally, we adduce evidence that whether deterioration of a country’s net foreign asset to GDP position leads to a depreciation of that country’s effective exchange rate depends on its rate of inflation relative to the rate of inflation abroad as well as its exposure to global shocks. JEL Classification: F31, F37, C23
This paper documents the methodology underlying the construction of a global database of gross foreign asset and liability positions for 153 countries over the period 1970 to 2004 and illustrates some key data characteristics. The data cover both inflows and outflows of capital and thus allow for an assessment of the degree of international financial integration. In addition to net foreign asset stocks, we also provide details on the composition of the main asset and liability categories, namely the foreign direct investment, equity investment and debt components. Finally, we report on valuation changes as one of the main sources of discrepancy between transaction-based capital flow data and stock values of investment positions. The dataset is available for download at www.ifk-cfs.de/fileadmin/downloads/data/cfs-icfd.zip. or http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/volltexte/2007/4855/original/cfs-icfd.zip JEL Classification: F21; F34; F32
Retirees confront the difficult problem of how to manage their money in retirement so as to not outlive their funds while continuing to invest in capital markets. We posit a dynamic utility maximizer who makes both asset location and allocation decisions when managing her retirement financial wealth and annuities, and we prove that she can benefit from both the equity premium and longevity insurance in her retirement portfolio. Even without bequests, she will not fully annuitize; rather, her optimal stock allocation amounts initially to more than half of her financial wealth and declines with age. Welfare gains from this strategy can amount to 40 percent of financial wealth (depending on risk parameters and other resources). In practice, it turns out that many retirees will do almost as well by purchasing a variable annuity invested 60/40 in stocks/bonds. JEL Classification: G11, G23, G22, D14, J26, H55
Household saving behavior : the role of literacy, information and financial education programs
(2007)
Individuals are increasingly in charge of their own financial security after retirement. But how well-equipped are individuals to make saving decisions; do they possess adequate financial literacy, are they informed about the most important components of saving plans, do they even plan for retirement? This paper shows that financial illiteracy is widespread among the US population and particularly acute among specific demographic groups, such as those with low education, women, African-Americans and Hispanics. Moreover, close to half of older workers do not know which type of pensions they have and the large majority of workers know little about the rules governing Social Security benefits. Lack of literacy and lack of information can affect the ability to save and to secure a comfortable retirement; few individuals rely on the help of financial advisors and ignorance about basic financial concepts can be linked to lack of retirement planning and lack of wealth. Financial education programs can help improve saving and financial decision-making, but much more can be done to improve the effectiveness of these programs. JEL Classification: D91
We review savings trends in Italy, summarizing available empirical evidence on Italians’ motives to save, relying on macroeconomic indicators as well as on data drawn from the Bank of Italy’s Survey of Household Income and Wealth from 1984 to 2004. The macroeconomic data indicate that households’ saving has dropped significantly, although Italy continues to rank above most other countries in terms of saving. We then examine with microeconomic data four indicators of household financial conditions: the propensity to save, the proportion of households with negative savings, the proportion of households with debt, and the proportion of households that lack access to formal credit markets. By international comparison, the level of debt of Italian households and default risk are relatively low. But in light of the deep changes undergone by the Italian pension system, the fall in saving is a concern, particularly for individuals who entered the labor market after the 1995 reform and who have experienced the largest decline in pension wealth. JEL Classification: D91
It is theoretically clear and may be verified empirically that efficient financial markets can make it less necessary for policy to try and offset the welfare effects of labour income risk and unequal consumption dynamics. The literature has also pointed out that, since international competition exposes workers to new sources of risk at the same time as it makes it easier for individual choices to undermine collective policies, international economic integration makes insurance-oriented government policies more beneficial as well as more difficult to implement. This paper reviews the economic mechanisms underlying these insights and assesses their empirical relevance in cross-country panel data sets. Interactions between indicators of international economic integration, of government economic involvement, and of financial development are consistent with the idea that financial market development can substitute public schemes when economic integration calls for more effective household consumption smoothing. The paper’s theoretical perspective and empirical evidence suggest that to the extent that governments can foster financial market development by appropriate regulation and supervision, they should do so more urgently at times of intense and increasing internationalization of economic relationships. JEL Classification: G1, E21
Recent models with liquidity constraints and impatience emphasize that consumers use savings to buffer income fluctuations. When wealth is below an optimal target, consumers try to increase their buffer stock of wealth by saving more. When it is above target, they increase consumption. This important implication of the buffer stock model of saving has not been subject to direct empirical testing. We derive from the model an appropriate theoretical restriction and test it using data on working-age individuals drawn from the 2002 and 2004 Italian Surveys of Household Income and Wealth. One of the most appealing features of the survey is that it has data on the amount of wealth held for precautionary purposes, which we interpret as target wealth in a buffer stock model. The test results do not support buffer stock behavior, even among population groups that are more likely, a priori, to display such behavior. The saving behavior of young households is instead consistent with models in which impatience, relative to prudence, is not as high as in buffer stock models. JEL Classification: D91
Economists are beginning to investigate the causes and consequences of financial illiteracy to better understand why retirement planning is lacking and why so many households arrive close to retirement with little or no wealth. Our review reveals that many households are unfamiliar with even the most basic economic concepts needed to make saving and investment decisions. Such financial illiteracy is widespread: the young and older people in the United States and other countries appear woefully under-informed about basic financial concepts, with serious implications for saving, retirement planning, mortgages, and other decisions. In response, governments and several nonprofit organizations have undertaken initiatives to enhance financial literacy. The experience of other countries, including a saving campaign in Japan as well as the Swedish pension privatization program, offers insights into possible roles for financial literacy and saving programs. JEL Classification: D80, D91, G11
This paper uses factor-augmented vector autoregressions (FAVAR) estimated using a large data set to disentangle fluctuations in disaggregated consumer and producer prices which are due to macroeconomic factors from those due to sectorial conditions. This allows us to provide consistent estimates of the effects of US monetary policy on disaggregated prices. While sectorial prices respond quickly to sector-specific shocks, we find that for a large number of price series, there is a significant delay in the response of prices to monetary policy shocks. In addition, price responses display little evidence of a “price puzzle,” contrary to existing studies based on traditional VARs. The observed dispersion in the reaction of producer prices is relatively well explained by the degree of market power, as predicted by models with monopolistic competition. JEL Classification: E32, E52
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
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
In this paper, we examine three famous episodes of deliberate deflation (or disinflation) in U.S. history, including episodes following the Civil War, World War I, and the Volcker disinflation of the early 1980s. These episodes were associated with widely divergent effects on the real economy, which we attribute both to differences in the policy actions undertaken, and to the transparency and credibility of the monetary authorities. We attempt to account for the salient features of each episode within the context of a stylized DSGE model. Our model simulations indicate how a more predictable policy of gradual deflation could have helped avoid the sharp post-WWI depression. But our analysis also suggests that the strong argument for gradualism under a transparent monetary regime becomes less persuasive if the monetary authority lacks credibility; in this case, an aggressive policy stance (as under Volcker) can play a useful signalling role by making a policy shift more apparent to private agents. JEL Classification: E31, E32, E52
This paper studies a dynamic general equilibrium model with sticky prices and rational expectations in an environment of low interest rates and deflationary pressures. We show that small changes in the public’s beliefs about the future inflation target of the government can lead to large swings in both inflation and output. This effect is much larger at low interest rates than under regular circumstances. This highlights the importance of effective communication policy at zero interest rates. We argue that confusing communications by the US Federal Reserve, the President of the United States, and key administration officials about future price objectives were responsible for the sharp recession in the US in 1937-38, one of the sharpest recessions in US economic history. Poor communication policy is the mistake of 1937. Before committing the mistake of 1937 the US policy makers faced economic conditions that are similar in some respect to those confronted by Japanese policy makers in the first half of 2006. JEL Classification: E32, E52, E61
This paper documents the trends in the life-cycle profiles of net worth and housing equity between 1983 and 2004. The net worth of older households significantly increased during the housing boom of recent years. However, net worth grew by more than housing equity, in part because other assets also appreciated at the same time. Moreover, the younger elderly offset rising house prices by increasing their housing debt, and used some of the proceeds to invest in other assets. We also consider how much of their housing equity older households can actually tap, using reverse mortgages. This fraction is lower at younger ages, such that young retirees can consume less than half of their housing equity. These results imply that ‘consumable’ net worth is smaller than standard calculations of net worth. JEL Classification: G11, E21
This paper proposes a possible way of assessing the effect of interest rate dynamics on changes in the decision-making approach, communication strategy and operational framework of a Central bank. Through a GARCH specification we show that the USA and Euro area displayed a limited but significant spillover of volatility from money market to longer-term rates. We then checked the stability of this phenomenon in the most recent period of improved policymaking and found empirical evidence that the transmission of overnight volatility along the yield curve vanished soon after specific policy changes of the FED and ECB.
We develop a utility based model of fluctuations, with nominal rigidities, and unemployment. In doing so, we combine two strands of research: the New Keynesian model with its focus on nominal rigidities, and the Diamond-Mortensen-Pissarides model, with its focus on labor market frictions and unemployment. In developing this model, we proceed in two steps. We first leave nominal rigidities aside. We show that, under a standard utility specification, productivity shocks have no effect on unemployment in the constrained efficient allocation. We then focus on the implications of alternative real wage setting mechanisms for fluctuations in unemployment. We then introduce nominal rigidities in the form of staggered price setting by firms. We derive the relation between inflation and unemployment and discuss how it is influenced by the presence of real wage rigidities. We show the nature of the tradeoff between inflation and unemployment stabilization, and we draw the implications for optimal monetary policy. JEL Classification: E32, E50
We focus on a quantitative assessment of rigid labor markets in an environment of stable monetary policy. We ask how wages and labor market shocks feed into the inflation process and derive monetary policy implications. Towards that aim, we structurally model matching frictions and rigid wages in line with an optimizing rationale in a New Keynesian closed economy DSGE model. We estimate the model using Bayesian techniques for German data from the late 1970s to present. Given the pre-euro heterogeneity in wage bargaining we take this as the first-best approximation at hand for modelling monetary policy in the presence of labor market frictions in the current European regime. In our framework, we find that labor market structure is of prime importance for the evolution of the business cycle, and for monetary policy in particular. Yet shocks originating in the labor market itself may contain only limited information for the conduct of stabilization policy. JEL Classification: E32, E52, J64, C11
We study optimal investment in self-protection of insured individuals when they face interdependencies in the form of potential contamination from others. If individuals cannot coordinate their actions, then the positive externality of investing in self-protection implies that, in equilibrium, individuals underinvest in self-protection. Limiting insurance coverage through deductibles or selling “at-fault” insurance can partially internalize this externality and thereby improve individual and social welfare. JEL Classification: C72, D62, D80
I employ a large set of scanner price data collected in retail stores to document that (i) although the average magnitude of price changes is large, a substantial number of price changes are small in absolute value; (ii) the distribution of non-zero price changes has fat tails; and (iii) stores tend to adjust prices of goods in narrow product categories simultaneously. I extend the standard menu costs model to a multi-product setting in which firms face economies of scale in the technology of adjusting prices. The model, because of its ability to replicate this additional set of micro-economic facts, can generate aggregate fluctuations much larger than those in standard menu costs economies. JEL Classification: E31, E32
The European Central Bank has assigned a special role to money in its two pillar strategy and has received much criticism for this decision. In this paper, we explore possible justifications. The case against including money in the central bank’s interest rate rule is based on a standard model of the monetary transmission process that underlies many contributions to research on monetary policy in the last two decades. Of course, if one allows for a direct effect of money on output or inflation as in the empirical “two-pillar” Phillips curves estimated in some recent contributions, it would be optimal to include a measure of (long-run) money growth in the rule. In this paper, we develop a justification for including money in the interest rate rule by allowing for imperfect knowledge regarding unobservables such as potential output and equilibrium interest rates. We formulate a novel characterization of ECB-style monetary cross-checking and show that it can generate substantial stabilization benefits in the event of persistent policy misperceptions regarding potential output. Such misperceptions cause a bias in policy setting. We find that cross-checking and changing interest rates in response to sustained deviations of long-run money growth helps the central bank to overcome this bias. Our argument in favor of ECB-style cross-checking does not require direct effects of money on output or inflation. JEL Classification: E32, E41, E43, E52, E58
The European Central Bank has assigned a special role to money in its two pillar strategy and has received much criticism for this decision. The case against including money in the central bank’s interest rate rule is based on a standard model of the monetary transmission process that underlies many contributions to research on monetary policy in the last two decades. In this paper, we develop a justification for including money in the interest rate rule by allowing for imperfect knowledge regarding unobservables such as potential output and equilibrium interest rates. We formulate a novel characterization of ECB-style monetary cross-checking and show that it can generate substantial stabilization benefits in the event of persistent policy misperceptions regarding potential output. JEL Classification: E32, E41, E43, E52, E58
Exchanges in Europe are in a process of consolidation. After the failure of the proposed merger between Deutsche Börse and Euronext, these two groups are likely to become the nuclei for further mergers and co-operation with currently independent exchanges. A decision for one of the groups entails a decision for the respective trading platform. Against that background we evaluate the attractiveness of the two dominant continental European trading systems. Though both are anonymous electronic limit order books, there are important differences in the trading protocols. We use a matched-sample approach to compare execution costs in Euronext Paris and Xetra. We find that both quoted and effective spreads are lower in Xetra. When decomposing the spread we find no systematic differences in the adverse selection component. Realized spreads, on the other hand, are significantly higher in Euronext. Neither differences in the number of liquidity provision agreements nor differences in the minimum tick size or in the degree of domestic competition for order flow explain the different spread levels. We thus conclude that Xetra is the more efficient trading system. JEL Classification: G10, G15
This paper focuses on dynamic interactions of equity prices among theoretically related assets. We explore the existence of intraday non-linearities in the FTSE 100 cash and futures indices. We test whether the introduction of the electronic trading systems in the London Stock Exchange in 1997 and in the London International Financial Futures and Options Exchange (LIFFE) in 1999 has eliminated the non-linear dynamic relationship in the FTSE 100 markets. We show that the introduction of the electronic trading systems in the FTSE 100 markets has increased the efficiency of the markets by enhancing the price discovery process, namely by facilitating the increase of the speed of adjustment of the futures and cash prices to departures of the mispricing error from its non-arbitrage band. Nevertheless, we conclude that the automation of the markets has not completely eliminated the non-linear properties of the FTSE 100 cash and futures return series. JEL Classification: G12, G14, G15
The paper provides novel insights on the effect of a firm’s risk management objective on the optimal design of risk transfer instruments. I analyze the interrelation between the structure of the optimal insurance contract and the firm’s objective to minimize the required equity it has to hold to accommodate losses in the presence of multiple risks and moral hazard. In contrast to the case of risk aversion and moral hazard, the optimal insurance contract involves a joint deductible on aggregate losses in the present setting.
This paper explores the role of trade integration—or openness—for monetary policy transmission in a medium-scale New Keynesian model. Allowing for strategic complementarities in price-setting, we highlight a new dimension of the exchange rate channel by which monetary policy directly impacts domestic inflation. Although the strength of this effect increases with economic openness, it also requires that import prices respond to exchange rate changes. In this case domestic producers find it optimal to adjust their prices to exchange rate changes which alter the domestic currency price of their foreign competitors. We pin down key parameters of the model by matching impulse responses obtained from a vector autoregression on U.S. time series relative to an aggregate of industrialized countries. While we find evidence for strong complementarities, exchange rate pass-through is limited. Openness has therefore little bearing on monetary transmission in the estimated model.
The popular Nelson-Siegel (1987) yield curve is routinely fit to cross sections of intra-country bond yields, and Diebold and Li (2006) have recently proposed a dynamized version. In this paper we extend Diebold-Li to a global context, modeling a potentially large set of country yield curves in a framework that allows for both global and country-specific factors. In an empirical analysis of term structures of government bond yields for the Germany, Japan, the U.K. and the U.S., we find that global yield factors do indeed exist and are economically important, generally explaining significant fractions of country yield curve dynamics, with interesting differences across countries.
Measuring financial asset return and volatilty spillovers, with application to global equity markets
(2008)
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 nineteen 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.
Increasingly, individuals are in charge of their own financial security and are confronted with ever more complex financial instruments. However, there is evidence that many individuals are not well-equipped to make sound saving decisions. This paper demonstrates widespread financial illiteracy among the U.S. population, particularly among specific demographic groups. Those with low education, women, African-Americans, and Hispanics display particularly low levels of literacy. Financial literacy impacts financial decision-making. Failure to plan for retirement, lack of participation in the stock market, and poor borrowing behavior can all be linked to ignorance of basic financial concepts. While financial education programs can result in improved saving behavior and financial decision-making, much can be done to improve these programs’ effectiveness.
Research with Keynesian-style models has emphasized the importance of the output gap for policies aimed at controlling inflation while declaring monetary aggregates largely irrelevant. Critics, however, have argued that these models need to be modified to account for observed money growth and inflation trends, and that monetary trends may serve as a useful cross-check for monetary policy. We identify an important source of monetary trends in form of persistent central bank misperceptions regarding potential output. Simulations with historical output gap estimates indicate that such misperceptions may induce persistent errors in monetary policy and sustained trends in money growth and inflation. If interest rate prescriptions derived from Keynesian-style models are augmented with a cross-check against money-based estimates of trend inflation, inflation control is improved substantially.
We investigate, using the 2002 US Health and Retirement Study, the factors influencing individuals’ insecurity and expectations about terrorism, and study the effects these last have on households’ portfolio choices and spending patterns. We find that females, the religiously devout, those equipped with a better memory, the less educated, and those living close to where the events of September 2001 took place worry a lot about their safety. In addition, fear of terrorism discourages households from investing in stocks, mostly through the high levels of insecurity felt by females. Insecurity due to terrorism also makes single men less likely to own a business. Finally, we find evidence of expenditure shifting away from recreational activities that can potentially leave one exposed to a terrorist attack and towards goods that might help one cope with the consequences of terrorism materially (increased use of car and spending on the house) or psychologically (spending on personal care products by females in couples).
We argue for incorporating the financial economics of market microstructure into the financial econometrics of asset return volatility estimation. In particular, we use market microstructure theory to derive the cross-correlation function between latent returns and market microstructure noise, which feature prominently in the recent volatility literature. The cross-correlation at zero displacement is typically negative, and cross-correlations at nonzero displacements are positive and decay geometrically. If market makers are sufficiently risk averse, however, the cross-correlation pattern is inverted. Our results are useful for assessing the validity of the frequently-assumed independence of latent price and microstructure noise, for explaining observed cross-correlation patterns, for predicting as-yet undiscovered patterns, and for making informed conjectures as to improved volatility estimation methods.
We document significant and robust empirical relationships in cross-country panel data between government size or social expenditure on the one hand, and trade and financial development indicators on the other. Across countries, deeper economic integration is associated with more intense government redistribution, but more developed financial markets weaken that relationship. Over time, controlling for country-specific effects, public social expenditure appears to be eroded by globalization trends where financial market development can more easily substitute for it.
Central counterparties (CCPs) have increasingly become a cornerstone of financial markets infrastructure. We present a model where trades are time-critical, liquidity is limited and there is limited enforcement of trades. We show a CCP novating trades implements efficient trading behaviour. It is optimal for the CCP to face default losses to achieve the efficient level of trade. To cover these losses, the CCP optimally uses margin calls, and, as the default problem becomes more severe, also requires default funds and then imposes position limits.
n the last few years, many of the world’s largest financial exchanges have converted from mutual, not-for-profit organizations to publicly-traded, for-profit firms. In most cases, these exchanges have substantial responsibilities with respect to enforcing various regulations that protect investors from dishonest agents. We examine how the incentives to enforce such regulations change as an exchange converts from mutual to for-profit status. In contrast to oft-stated concerns, we find that, in many circumstances, an exchange that maximizes shareholder (rather than member) income has a greater incentive to aggressively enforce these types of regulations.
The execution, clearing, and settlement of financial transactions are all subject to substantial scale and scope economies which make each of these complementary functions a natural monopoly. Integration of trade, execution, and settlement in an exchange improves efficiency by economizing on transactions costs. When scope economies in clearing are more extensive than those in execution, integration is more costly, and efficient organization involves a trade-off of scope economies and transactions costs. A properly organized clearing cooperative can eliminate double marginalization problems and exploit scope economies, but can result in opportunism and underinvestment. Moreover, a clearing cooperative may exercise market power. Vertical integration and tying can foreclose entry, but foreclosure can be efficient because market power rents attract excessive entry. Integration of trading and post-trade services is the modal form of organization in financial markets, which is consistent with the hypothesis that transactional efficiencies explain organizational arrangements in these markets.
This paper considers a trading game in which sequentially arriving liquidity traders either opt for a market order or for a limit order. One class of traders is considered to have an extended trading horizon, implying their impatience is linked to their trading orientation. More specifically, sellers are considered to have a trading horizon of two periods, whereas buyers only have a single-period trading scope (the extended buyer-horizon case is completely symmetric). Clearly, as the life span of their submitted limit orders is longer, this setting implies sellers are granted a natural advantage in supplying liquidity. This benefit is hampered, however, by the direct competition arising between consecutively arriving sellers. Closed-form characterizations for the order submission strategies are obtained when solving for the equilibrium of this dynamic game. These allow to examine how these forces affect traders´ order placement decisions. Further, the analysis yields insight into the dynamic process of price formation and into the market clearing process of a non-intermediated, order driven market.
Central counterparties
(2008)
Central counterparties (CCPs) have increasingly become a cornerstone of financial markets infrastructure. We present a model where trades are time-critical, liquidity is limited and there is limited enforcement of trades. We show a CCP novating trades implements efficient trading behaviour. It is optimal for the CCP to face default losses to achieve the efficient level of trade. To cover these losses, the CCP optimally uses margin calls, and, as the default problem becomes more severe, also requires default funds and then imposes position limits.
Algorithmic trading has sharply increased over the past decade. Equity market liquidity has improved as well. Are the two trends related? For a recent five-year panel of New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) stocks, we use a normalized measure of electronic message traffic (order submissions, cancellations, and executions) as a proxy for algorithmic trading, and we trace the associations between liquidity and message traffic. Based on within-stock variation, we find that algorithmic trading and liquidity are positively related. To sort out causality, we use the start of autoquoting on the NYSE as an exogenous instrument for algorithmic trading. Previously, specialists were responsible for manually disseminating the inside quote. As stocks were phased in gradually during early 2003, the manual quote was replaced by a new automated quote whenever there was a change to the NYSE limit order book. This market structure change provides quicker feedback to traders and algorithms and results in more message traffic. For large-cap stocks in particular, quoted and effective spreads narrow under autoquote and adverse selection declines, indicating that algorithmic trading does causally improve liquidity.
We consider a multi-period rational expectations model in which risk-averse investors differ in their information on past transaction prices (the ticker). Some investors (insiders) observe prices in real-time whereas other investors (outsiders) observe prices with a delay. As prices are informative about the asset payoff, insiders get a strictly larger expected utility than outsiders. Yet, information acquisition by one investor exerts a negative externality on other investors. Thus, investors’ average welfare is maximal when access to price information is rationed. We show that a market for price information can implement the fraction of insiders that maximizes investors’ average welfare. This market features a high price to curb excessive acquisition of ticker information. We also show that informational efficiency is greater when the dissemination of ticker information is broader and more timely.
We find and describe four futures markets where the bid-ask spread is bid down to the fixed price tick size practically all the time, and which match counterparties using a pro-rata rule. These four markets´ offered depths at the quotes on average exceed mean market order size by two orders of magnitude, and their order cancellation rates (the probability of any given offered lot being cancelled) are significantly over 96 per cent. We develop a simple theoretical model to ex- plain these facts, where strategic complementarities in the choice of limit order size cause traders to risk overtrading by submitting over-sized limit orders, most of which they expect to cancel.
This paper analyzes liquidity in an order driven market. We only investigate the best limits in the limit order book, but also take into account the book behind these inside prices. When subsequent prices are close to the best ones and depth at them is substantial, larger orders can be executed without an extensive price impact and without deterring liquidity. We develop and estimate several econometric models, based on depth and prices in the book, as well as on the slopes of the limit order book. The dynamics of different dimensions of liquidity are analyzed: prices, depth at and beyond the best prices, as well as resiliency, i.e. how fast the different liquidity measures recover after a liquidity shock. Our results show a somewhat less favorable image of liquidity than often found in the literature. After a liquidity shock (in the spread or depth or in the book beyond the best limits), several dimension of liquidity deteriorate at the same time. Not only does the inside spread increase, and depth at the best prices decrease, also the difference between subsequent bid and ask prices may become larger and depth provided at them decreases. The impacts are both econometrically and economically significant. Also, our findings point to an interaction between different measures of liquidity, between liquidity at the best prices and beyond in the book, and between ask and bid side of the market.
Previous evidence suggests that less liquid stocks entail higher average returns. Using NYSE data, we present evidence that both the sensitivity of returns to liquidity and liquidity premia have significantly declined over the past four decades to levels that we cannot statistically distinguish from zero. Furthermore, the profitability of trading strategies based on buying illiquid stocks and selling illiquid stocks has declined over the past four decades, rendering such strategies virtually unprofitable. Our results are robust to several conventional liquidity measures related to volume. When using liquidity measure that is not related to volume, we find just weak evidence of a liquidity premium even in the early periods of our sample. The gradual introduction and proliferation of index funds and exchange traded funds is a possible explanation for these results.
This paper addresses and resolves the issue of microstructure noise when measuring the relative importance of home and U.S. market in the price discovery process of Canadian interlisted stocks. In order to avoid large bounds for information shares, previous studies applying the Cholesky decomposition within the Hasbrouck (1995) framework had to rely on high frequency data. However, due to the considerable amount of microstructure noise inherent in return data at very high frequencies, these estimators are distorted. We offer a modified approach that identifies unique information shares based on distributional assumptions and thereby enables us to control for microstructure noise. Our results indicate that the role of the U.S. market in the price discovery process of Canadian interlisted stocks has been underestimated so far. Moreover, we suggest that rather than stock specific factors, market characteristics determine information shares.
Innovative automated execution strategies like Algorithmic Trading gain significant market share on electronic market venues worldwide, although their impact on market outcome has not been investigated in depth yet. In order to assess the impact of such concepts, e.g. effects on the price formation or the volatility of prices, a simulation environment is presented that provides stylized implementations of algorithmic trading behavior and allows for modeling latency. As simulations allow for reproducing exactly the same basic situation, an assessment of the impact of algorithmic trading models can be conducted by comparing different simulation runs including and excluding a trader constituting an algorithmic trading model in its trading behavior. By this means the impact of Algorithmic Trading on different characteristics of market outcome can be assessed. The results indicate that large volumes to execute by the algorithmic trader have an increasing impact on market prices. On the other hand, lower latency appears to lower market volatility.
Macro announcements change the equilibrium riskfree rate. We find that treasury prices reflect part of the impact instantaneously, but intermediaries rely on their customer order flow in the 15 minutes after the announcement to discover the full impact. We show that this customer flow informativeness is strongest at times when analyst forecasts of macro variables are highly dispersed. We study 30 year treasury futures to identify the customer flow. We further show that intermediaries appear to benefit from privately recognizing informed customer flow, as, in the cross-section, their own-account trade profitability correlates with access to customer orders, controlling for volatility, competition, and the announcement surprise. These results suggest that intermediaries learn about equilibrium riskfree rates through customer orders.
We report evidence that the presence of hidden liquidity is associated with greater liquidity in the order books, greater trading volume, and smaller price impact. Limit and market order submission behavior changes when hidden liquidity is present consistent with at least some traders being able to detect hidden liquidity. We estimate a model of liquidity provision that allows us to measure variations in the marginal and total payoffs from liquidity provision in states with and without hidden liquidity. Our estimates of the expected surplus to providers of visible and hidden liquidity are positive and typically of the order of one-half to one basis points per trade. The positive liquidity provider surpluses combined with the increased trading volume when hidden liquidity is present are both consistent with liquidity externalities.
The single most important policy-induced innovation in the international financial system since the collapse of the Bretton-Woods regime is the institution of the European Monetary Union. This paper provides an account of how the process of financial integration has promoted financial development in the euro area. It starts by defining financial integration and how to measure it, analyzes the barriers that can prevent it and the effects of their removal on financial markets, and assesses whether the euro area has actually become more integrated. It then explores to which extent these changes in financial markets have influenced the performance of the euro-area economy, that is, its growth and investment, as well as its ability to adjust to shocks and to allow risk-sharing. The paper concludes analyzing further steps that are required to consolidate financial integration and enhance the future stability of financial markets.
We study the relation between cognitive abilities and stockholding using the recent Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE), which has detailed data on wealth and portfolio composition of individuals aged 50+ in 11 European countries and three indicators of cognitive abilities: mathematical, verbal fluency, and recall skills. We find that the propensity to invest in stocks is strongly associated with cognitive abilities, for both direct stock market participation and indirect participation through mutual funds and retirement accounts. Since the decision to invest in less information-intensive assets (such as bonds) is less strongly related to cognitive abilities, we conclude that the association between cognitive abilities and stockholding is driven by information constraints, rather than by features of preferences or psychological traits.
We investigate whether information sharing among banks has affected credit market performance in the transition countries of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, using a large sample of firm-level data. Our estimates show that information sharing is associated with improved availability and lower cost of credit to firms. This correlation is stronger for opaque firms than transparent ones and stronger in countries with weak legal environments than in those with strong legal environments. In cross-sectional estimates, we control for variation in country-level aggregate variables that may affect credit, by examining the differential impact of information sharing across firm types. In panel estimates, we also control for the presence of unobserved heterogeneity at the firm level, as well as for changes in macroeconomic variables and the legal environment.
We examine insurance markets with two types of customers: those who regret suboptimal decisions and those who don.t. In this setting, we characterize the equilibria under hidden information about the type of customers and hidden action. We show that both pooling and separating equilibria can exist. Furthermore, there exist separating equilibria that predict a positive correlation between the amount of insurance coverage and risk type, as in the standard economic models of adverse selection, but there also exist separating equilibria that predict a negative correlation between the amount of insurance coverage and risk type, i.e. advantageous selection. Since optimal choice of regretful customers depends on foregone alternatives, any equilibrium includes a contract which is o¤ered but not purchased.
When a spot market monopolist participates in a derivatives market, she has an incentive to deviate from the spot market monopoly optimum to make her derivatives market position more profitable. When contracts can only be written contingent on the spot price, a risk-averse monopolist chooses to participate in the derivatives market to hedge her risk, and she reduces expected profits by doing so. However, eliminating all risk is impossible. These results are independent of the shape of the demand function, the distribution of demand shocks, the nature of preferences or the set of derivatives contracts.
Motivated by the prominent role of electronic limit order book (LOB) markets in today’s stock market environment, this paper provides the basis for understanding, reconstructing and adopting Hollifield, Miller, Sandas, and Slive’s (2006) (henceforth HMSS) methodology for estimating the gains from trade to the Xetra LOB market at the Frankfurt Stock Exchange (FSE) in order to evaluate its performance in this respect. Therefore this paper looks deeply into HMSS’s base model and provides a structured recipe for the planned implementation with Xetra LOB data. The contribution of this paper lies in the modification of HMSS’s methodology with respect to the particularities of the Xetra trading system that are not yet considered in HMSS’s base model. The necessary modifications, as expressed in terms of empirical caveats, are substantial to derive unbiased market efficiency measures for Xetra in the end.
How do fiscal and technology shocks affect real exchange rates? : New evidence for the United States
(2008)
Using vector autoregressions on U.S. time series relative to an aggregate of industrialized countries, this paper provides new evidence on the dynamic effects of government spending and technology shocks on the real exchange rate and the terms of trade. To achieve identification, we derive robust restrictions on the sign of several impulse responses from a two-country general equilibrium model. We find that both the real exchange rate and the terms of trade – whose responses are left unrestricted – depreciate in response to expansionary government spending shocks and appreciate in response to positive technology shocks.
This paper introduces adaptive learning and endogenous indexation in the New-Keynesian Phillips curve and studies disinflation under inflation targeting policies. The analysis is motivated by the disinflation performance of many inflation-targeting countries, in particular the gradual Chilean disinflation with temporary annual targets. At the start of the disinflation episode price-setting firms’ expect inflation to be highly persistent and opt for backward-looking indexation. As the central bank acts to bring inflation under control, price-setting firms revise their estimates of the degree of persistence. Such adaptive learning lowers the cost of disinflation. This reduction can be exploited by a gradual approach to disinflation. Firms that choose the rate for indexation also re-assess the likelihood that announced inflation targets determine steady-state inflation and adjust indexation of contracts accordingly. A strategy of announcing and pursuing short-term targets for inflation is found to influence the likelihood that firms switch from backward-looking indexation to the central bank’s targets. As firms abandon backward-looking indexation the costs of disinflation decline further. We show that an inflation targeting strategy that employs temporary targets can benefit from lower disinflation costs due to the reduction in backward-looking indexation.
Risk transfer with CDOs
(2008)
Modern bank management comprises both classical lending business and transfer of asset risk to capital markets through securitization. Sound knowledge of the risks involved in securitization transactions is a prerequisite for solid risk management. This paper aims to resolve a part of the opaqueness surrounding credit-risk allocation to tranches that represent claims of different seniority on a reference portfolio. In particular, this paper analyzes the allocation of credit risk to different tranches of a CDO transaction when the underlying asset returns are driven by a common macro factor and an idiosyncratic component. Junior and senior tranches are found to be nearly orthogonal, motivating a search for the whereabout of systematic risk in CDO transactions. We propose a metric for capturing the allocation of systematic risk to tranches. First, in contrast to a widely-held claim, we show that (extreme) tail risk in standard CDO transactions is held by all tranches. While junior tranches take on all types of systematic risk, senior tranches take on almost no non-tail risk. This is in stark contrast to an untranched bond portfolio of the same rating quality, which on average suffers substantial losses for all realizations of the macro factor. Second, given tranching, a shock to the risk of the underlying asset portfolio (e.g. a rise in asset correlation or in mean portfolio loss) has the strongest impact, in relative terms, on the exposure of senior tranche CDO-investors. Our findings can be used to explain major stylized facts observed in credit markets.
We explore the pattern of elderly homeownership using microeconomic surveys of 15 OECD countries, merging 60 national household surveys on about 300,000 individuals. In all countries the survey is repeated over time, permitting construction of an international dataset of repeated cross-sectional data. We find that ownership rates decline considerably after age 60 in all countries. However, a large part of the decline depends on cohort effects. Adjusting for them, we find that ownership rates start falling after age 70 and reach a percentage point per year decline after age 75. We find that differences across country ownership trajectories are correlated with indicators measuring the degree of market regulations.
Traditionally, aggregate liquidity shocks are modelled as exogenous events. Extending our previous work (Cao & Illing, 2007), this paper analyses the adequate policy response to endogenous systemic liquidity risk. We analyse the feedback between lender of last resort policy and incentives of private banks, determining the aggregate amount of liquidity available. We show that imposing minimum liquidity standards for banks ex ante are a crucial requirement for sensible lender of last resort policy. In addition, we analyse the impact of equity requirements and narrow banking, in the sense that banks are required to hold sufficient liquid funds so as to pay out in all contingencies. We show that such a policy is strictly inferior to imposing minimum liquidity standards ex ante combined with lender of last resort policy.
Monetary policy analysts often rely on rules-of-thumb, such as the Taylor rule, to describe historical monetary policy decisions and to compare current policy to historical norms. Analysis along these lines also permits evaluation of episodes where policy may have deviated from a simple rule and examination of the reasons behind such deviations. One interesting question is whether such rules-of-thumb should draw on policymakers "forecasts of key variables such as inflation and unemployment or on observed outcomes. Importantly, deviations of the policy from the prescriptions of a Taylor rule that relies on outcomes may be due to systematic responses to information captured in policymakers" own projections. We investigate this proposition in the context of FOMC policy decisions over the past 20 years using publicly available FOMC projections from the biannual monetary policy reports to the Congress (Humphrey-Hawkins reports). Our results indicate that FOMC decisions can indeed be predominantly explained in terms of the FOMC´s own projections rather than observed outcomes. Thus, a forecast-based rule-of-thumb better characterizes FOMC decision-making. We also confirm that many of the apparent deviations of the federal funds rate from an outcome-based Taylor-style rule may be considered systematic responses to information contained in FOMC projections.
Modern macroeconomics empirically addresses economy-wide incentives behind economic actions by using insights from the way a single representative household would behave. This analytical approach requires that incentives of the poor and the rich are strictly aligned. In empirical analysis a challenging complication is that consumer and income data are typically available at the household level, and individuals living in multimember households have the potential to share goods within the household. The analytical approach of modern macroeconomics would require that intra-household sharing is also strictly aligned across the rich and the poor. Here we have designed a survey method that allows the testing of this stringent property of intra-household sharing and find that it holds: once expenditures for basic needs are subtracted from disposable household income, household-size economies implied by the remainder household incomes are the same for the rich and the poor.
The future of securitization
(2008)
Securitization is a financial innovation that experiences a boom-bust cycle, as many other innovations before. This paper analyzes possible reasons for the breakdown of primary and secondary securitization markets, and argues that misaligned incentives along the value chain are the primary cause of the problems. The illiquidity of asset and interbank markets, in this view, is a market failure derived from ill-designed mechanisms of coordinating financial intermediaries and investors. Thus, illiquidity is closely related to the design of the financial chains. Our policy conclusions emphasize crisis prevention rather than crisis management, and the objective is to restore a “comprehensive incentive alignment”. The toe-hold for strengthening regulation is surprisingly small. First, we emphasize the importance of equity piece retention for the long-term quality of the underlying asset pool. As a consequence, equity piece allocation needs to be publicly known, alleviating market pricing. Second, on a micro level, accountability of managers can be improved by compensation packages aiming at long term incentives, and penalizing policies with destabilizing effects on financial markets. Third, on a macro level, increased transparency relating to effective risk transfer, risk-related management compensation, and credible measurement of rating performance stabilizes the valuation of financial assets and, hence, improves the solvency of financial intermediaries. Fourth, financial intermediaries, whose risk is opaque, may be subjected to higher capital requirements.
Bayesian learning provides the core concept of processing noisy information. In standard Bayesian frameworks, assessing the price impact of information requires perfect knowledge of news’ precision. In practice, however, precision is rarely dis- closed. Therefore, we extend standard Bayesian learning, suggesting traders infer news’ precision from magnitudes of surprises and from external sources. We show that interactions of the different precision signals may result in highly nonlinear price responses. Empirical tests based on intra-day T-bond futures price reactions to employment releases confirm the model’s predictions and show that the effects are statistically and economically significant.
We show that the use of correlations for modeling dependencies may lead to counterintuitive behavior of risk measures, such as Value-at-Risk (VaR) and Expected Short- fall (ES), when the risk of very rare events is assessed via Monte-Carlo techniques. The phenomenon is demonstrated for mixture models adapted from credit risk analysis as well as for common Poisson-shock models used in reliability theory. An obvious implication of this finding pertains to the analysis of operational risk. The alleged incentive suggested by the New Basel Capital Accord (Basel II), amely decreasing minimum capital requirements by allowing for less than perfect correlation, may not necessarily be attainable.
The paper proposes a panel cointegration analysis of the joint development of government expenditures and economic growth in 23 OECD countries. The empirical evidence provides indication of a structural positive correlation between public spending and per-capita GDP which is consistent with the so-called Wagner´s law. A long-run elasticity larger than one suggests a more than proportional increase of government expenditures with respect to economic activity. In addition, according to the spirit of the law, we found that the correlation is usually higher in countries with lower per-capita GDP, suggesting that the catching-up period is characterized by a stronger development of government activities with respect to economies in a more advanced state of development.
Based on a unique dataset of legislative changes in industrial countries, we identify events that strengthen the competition control of mergers and acquisitions, analyze their impact on banks and non-financial firms and explain the different reactions observed with specific regulatory characteristics of the banking sector. Covering nineteen countries for the period 1987 to 2004, we find that more competition-oriented merger control increases the stock prices of banks and decreases the stock prices of non-financial firms. Bank targets become more profitable and larger, while those of non-financial firms remain mostly unaffected. A major determinant of the positive bank returns is the degree of opaqueness that characterizes the institutional setup for supervisory bank merger reviews. The legal design of the supervisory control of bank mergers may therefore have important implications for real activity.
An asymmetric multivariate generalization of the recently proposed class of normal mixture GARCH models is developed. Issues of parametrization and estimation are discussed. Conditions for covariance stationarity and the existence of the fourth moment are derived, and expressions for the dynamic correlation structure of the process are provided. In an application to stock market returns, it is shown that the disaggregation of the conditional (co)variance process generated by the model provides substantial intuition. Moreover, the model exhibits a strong performance in calculating out–of–sample Value–at–Risk measures.
We develop a multivariate generalization of the Markov–switching GARCH model introduced by Haas, Mittnik, and Paolella (2004b) and derive its fourth–moment structure. An application to international stock markets illustrates the relevance of accounting for volatility regimes from both a statistical and economic perspective, including out–of–sample portfolio selection and computation of Value–at–Risk.
Marginal income taxes may have an insurance effect by decreasing the effective fluctuations of after-tax individual income. By compressing the idiosyncratic component o personal income fluctuations, higher marginal taxes should be negatively correlated with the dispersion of consumption across households, a necessary implication of an insurance effect of taxation. Our study empirically examines this negative correlation, exploiting the ample variation of state taxes across US states. We show that taxes are negatively correlated with the consumption dispersion of the within-state distribution of non-durable consumption and that this correlation is robust.
This paper documents and studies sources of international differences in participation and holdings in stocks, private businesses, and homes among households aged 50+ in the US, England, and eleven continental European countries, using new internationally comparable, household-level data. With greater integration of asset and labor markets and policies, households of given characteristics should be holding more similar portfolios for old age. We decompose observed differences across the Atlantic, within the US, and within Europe into those arising from differences: a) in the distribution of characteristics and b) in the influence of given characteristics. We find that US households are generally more likely to own these assets than their European counterparts. However, European asset owners tend to hold smaller real, PPP-adjusted amounts in stocks and larger in private businesses and primary residence than US owners at comparable points in the distribution of holdings, even controlling for differences in configuration of characteristics. Differences in characteristics often play minimal or no role. Differences in market conditions are much more pronounced among European countries than among US regions, suggesting significant potential for further integration.
We estimate the degree of 'stickiness' in aggregate consumption growth (sometimes interpreted as reflecting consumption habits) for thirteen advanced economies. We find that, after controlling for measurement error, consumption growth has a high degree of autocorrelation, with a stickiness parameter of about 0.7 on average across countries. The sticky-consumption-growth model outperforms the random walk model of Hall (1978), and typically fits the data better than the popular Campbell and Mankiw (1989) model. In several countries, the sticky-consumption-growth and Campbell-Mankiw models work about equally well.
While companies have emerged as very proactive donors in the wake of recent major disasters like Hurricane Katrina, it remains unclear whether that corporate generosity generates benefits to firms themselves. The literature on strategic philanthropy suggests that such philanthropic behavior may be valuable because it can generate direct and indirect benefits to the firm, yet it is not known whether investors interpret donations in this way. We develop hypotheses linking the strategic character of donations to positive abnormal returns. Using event study methodology, we investigate stock market reactions to corporate donation announcements by 108 US firms made in response to Hurricane Katrina. We then use regression analysis to examine if our hypothesized predictors are associated with positive abnormal returns. Our results show that overall, corporate donations were linked to neither positive nor negative abnormal returns. We do, however, see that a number of factors moderate the relationship between donation announcements and abnormal stock returns. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.
This study develops a novel 2-step hedonic approach, which is used to construct a price index for German paintings. This approach enables the researcher to use every single auction record, instead of only those auction records that belong to a sub-sample of selected artists. This results in a substantially larger sample available for research and it lowers the selection bias that is inherent in the traditional hedonic and repeat sales methodologies. Using a unique sample of 61,135 auction records for German artworks created by 5,115 different artists over the period 1985 to 2007, we find that the geometric annual return on German art is just 3.8 percent, with a standard deviation of 17.87 percent. Although our results indicate that art underperforms the market portfolio and is not proportionally rewarded for downside risk, under some circumstances art should be included in an optimal portfolio for diversification purposes.