Institution
Federal Reserve System
Other•Washington D.C., District of Columbia, United States•
About: Federal Reserve System is a other organization based out in Washington D.C., District of Columbia, United States. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Monetary policy & Inflation. The organization has 2373 authors who have published 10301 publications receiving 511979 citations.
Topics: Monetary policy, Inflation, Interest rate, Market liquidity, Debt
Papers published on a yearly basis
Papers
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TL;DR: In this paper, the authors used two empirical no-arbitrage macro-finance models of the term structure of interest rates to study the conundrum of low long-term interest rates and found that foreign official purchases of U.S. Treasuries played little or no role.
Abstract: In 2004 and 2005, long-term interest rates remained remarkably low despite improving economic conditions and rising short-term interest rates, a situation that then-Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan dubbed a “conundrum.” We document the extent and timing of this conundrum using two empirical no-arbitrage macro-finance models of the term structure of interest rates. These models confirm that the recent behavior of long-term yields has been unusual—that is, it cannot be explained within the framework of the models. Therefore, we consider other macroeconomic factors omitted from the models and find that some of these variables, particularly declines in long-term bond volatility, may explain a portion of the conundrum. Foreign official purchases of U.S. Treasuries appear to have played little or no role.
162 citations
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TL;DR: This article examined whether expert consensus forecasts of monthly economic releases are systematically biased toward the value of previous months' releases and found broad-based and significant evidence for this form of bias, which in some cases results in sizable predictable forecast errors.
Abstract: Previous empirical studies on the “rationality” of economic and financial forecasts generally test for generic properties such as bias or autocorrelated errors but provide only limited insight into the behavior behind inefficient forecasts. This paper tests for a specific form of forecast bias. In particular, we examine whether expert consensus forecasts of monthly economic releases are systematically biased toward the value of previous months’ releases. Such a bias would be consistent with the anchoring and adjustment heuristic described by Tversky and Kahneman (1974) or could arise from professional forecasters’ strategic incentives. We find broad-based and significant evidence for this form of bias, which in some cases results in sizable predictable forecast errors. To investigate whether market participants’ expectations are influenced by this bias, we examine interest rate reactions to economic news. We find that bond yields react only to the residual, or unpredictable, component of the forecast error and not to the component induced by anchoring, suggesting that expectations of market participants anticipate this bias embedded in expert forecasts.
162 citations
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TL;DR: In this paper, the authors consider institutional developments in FOMC policy making that may have contributed to each of these components, including gradualism in adjusting the federal funds rate target and transparency regarding the setting of the target and future policy intentions.
Abstract: In recent years, financial markets appear better able to anticipate Federal
Open Market Committee (FOMC) policy changes. Beginning in the late
1980s and early 1990s, longer-term interest rates and futures rates have tended
to incorporate movements in the federal funds rate several months in
advance, in contrast to the largely contemporaneous response typically
observed before that time. After identifying these emerging trends, the paper
parses the enhanced predictability into a component that can be attributed
to the autoregressive behavior of the funds rate and a nonautoregressive
component. The paper considers institutional developments in FOMC policy
making that may have contributed to each of these components, including
gradualism in adjusting the federal funds rate target and transparency regarding
the setting of the target and future policy intentions.
162 citations
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TL;DR: In this paper, the authors assess the degree of consumption smoothing implicit in a calibrated life-cycle version of the standard incomplete-markets model, and compare it to the empirical estimates of Blundell et al. (2008) (BPP hereafter).
Abstract: We assess the degree of consumption smoothing implicit in a calibrated life-cycle version of the standard incomplete-markets model, and we compare it to the empirical estimates of Blundell et al. (2008) (BPP hereafter). We find that households in the model have access to less consumption-smoothing against permanent earnings shocks than what is measured in the data. BPP estimate that 36% of permanent shocks are insurable (i.e., do not translate into consumption growth), whereas the model's counterpart of the BPP estimator varies between 7% and 22%, depending on the tightness of debt limits. In the model, the age profile of the insurance coefficient is sharply increasing, whereas BPP find no clear age slope in their estimate. Allowing for a plausible degree of "advance information" about future earnings does not reconcile the model-data gap. If earnings shocks display mean reversion, even with very high autocorrelation, then the average degree of consumption smoothing in the model agrees with the BPP empirical estimate, but its age profile remains steep. Finally, we show that the BPP estimator of the true insurance coefficient has, in general, a downward bias that grows as borrowing limits become tighter.
162 citations
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TL;DR: The authors found that experience-wage profiles are on average twice as steep in rich countries as in poor countries, and that more educated workers have steeper profiles than the less educated; this accounts for around one third of cross-country differences in aggregate profiles.
Abstract: This paper documents how life cycle wage growth varies across countries. We harmonize repeated cross-sectional surveys from a set of countries of all income levels and then measure how wages rise with potential experience. Our main finding is that experience-wage profiles are on average twice as steep in rich countries as in poor countries. In addition, more educated workers have steeper profiles than the less educated; this accounts for around one-third of cross-country differences in aggregate profiles. Our findings are consistent with theories in which workers in poor countries accumulate less human capital or face greater search frictions over the life cycle.
162 citations
Authors
Showing all 2412 results
Name | H-index | Papers | Citations |
---|---|---|---|
Ross Levine | 122 | 398 | 108067 |
Francis X. Diebold | 110 | 368 | 74723 |
Kenneth Rogoff | 107 | 390 | 75971 |
Allen N. Berger | 106 | 382 | 65596 |
Frederic S. Mishkin | 100 | 372 | 34898 |
Thomas J. Sargent | 96 | 370 | 39224 |
Ben S. Bernanke | 96 | 446 | 76378 |
Stijn Claessens | 96 | 462 | 42743 |
Andrew K. Rose | 88 | 374 | 42605 |
Martin Eichenbaum | 87 | 234 | 37611 |
Lawrence J. Christiano | 85 | 253 | 37734 |
Jie Yang | 78 | 532 | 20004 |
James P. Smith | 78 | 372 | 23013 |
Glenn D. Rudebusch | 73 | 226 | 22035 |
Edward C. Prescott | 72 | 235 | 55508 |