Federal Reserve System

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.

Transitional Dynamics and Economic Growth in the Neoclassical Model

Abstract: An understanding of the qualitative nature of the transitional dynamics of the neociassical model - the process of convergence from an initial capital stock to a steady state growth path - is a key part of the shared knowledge of most economists. It forms the basis, for example, of the widespread interest in hypotheses about convergence of levels of national economic activity. Based on several quantitative experiments undertaken in the 1960s with fixed savings rates versions of the neoclassical model, many economists further believe that the transition process can be lengthy, potentially rationalizing differences in growth rates across countries that are sustained for decades. In this paper, we undertake a systematic quantitative investigation of transitional dynamics within the most widely employed versions of the neoclassical model with interteorally optimizing households. Lengthy transitional episodes arise only if there is very low intertemporal substitution. But, more important, we find that the simplest neoclassical model inevitably generates a central implication that is traced to the production technology. Whenever we try to use it to explain major growth episodes, the model produces a rate of return that is counterfactually high in the early stages of development. For example, in seeking to account for U.S-Japan differences in post war growth as a consequence of differences in end-of-war capital, we find that the immediate postwar rate of return in Japan would have had to exceed 500% per annum. Frequently employed variants of the basic neoclassical model - those that introduce adjustment costs, separate production and consumption sectors, and international capital mobility - can potentially sweep this marginal product implication under the rug. However, such alterations necessarily cause major discrepancies to arise in other areas. With investment adjustment costs, for example, the implications resurface in counterfactual variations in Tobin's Q. We interpret our results as illustrating two important principles. First, systematic quantitative investigation of familiar models can provide surprising new insights into their practical operation. Second, explanation of sustained cross country differences in growth rates will require departure from the familiar neoclassical environment.

Consolidation and efficiency in the financial sector: A review of the international evidence ☆

Abstract: In response to fundamental changes in regulation and technology, the financial industry is undergoing an unprecedented wave of consolidation. A growing body of empirical literature measures the efficiency gains from mergers and acquisitions; however there is little sense of how the results might depend on the country, industry and time period analyzed. In this paper we review critically works that cover the main sectors of the financial industry (commercial and investment banks, insurance and asset management companies) in the major industrialized countries over the last 20 years, searching for common patterns that transcend national and sectoral peculiarities. We find that consolidation in the financial sector is beneficial up to a relatively small size, but there is little evidence that mergers yield economies of scope or gains in managerial efficiency.

Loss aversion in a consumption-savings model

Abstract: We propose a model of consumption and saving based on Kahneman and Tversky's Prospect Theory that implies a fundamental asymmetry in consumption behavior inconsistent with other models of consumption. When there is sufficient income uncertainty, a person resists lowering consumption in response to bad news about future income. This resistance is greater than the resistance to increasing consumption in response to good news. We present empirical evidence from five countries that confirms this behavior.

Global Banks and International Shock Transmission: Evidence from the Crisis

Abstract: Global banks played a significant role in the transmission of the 2007 to 2009 crisis to emerging market economies. This paper examines the relationships between adverse liquidity shocks on main developed-country banking systems to emerging markets across Europe, Asia, and Latin America, isolating loan supply from loan demand effects. Loan supply in emerging markets was significantly affected through three separate channels: a contraction in direct, cross-border lending by foreign banks; a contraction in local lending by foreign banks’ affiliates in emerging markets; and a contraction in loan supply by domestic banks resulting from the funding shock to their balance sheet induced by the decline in interbank, cross-border lending. Policy interventions, such as the Vienna Initiative introduced in Europe, influenced the lending channel effects on emerging markets of head office balance sheet shocks. Moreover, openness to international funding was not the main vehicle of propagation. Rather, it was exposure to international funding from source country banking systems that were ex ante more likely to suffer from the liquidity shock.

Inflation Forecasts and Monetary Policy

Abstract: Proposals for 'inflation targeting' as a strategy for monetary policy leave open the important operational question of how to determine whether current policies are consistent with the long-run inflation target. An interesting possibility is that the central bank might target current private-sector forecasts of inflation, either those made explicitly by professional forecasters or those implicit in asset prices. We address the issue of existence and uniqueness of rational expectations equilibria when the central bank uses private-sector forecasts as a guide to policy actions. In a dynamic model which incorporates both sluggish price adjustment and shocks to aggregate demand and aggregate supply, we show that strict targeting of inflation forecasts is typically inconsistent with the existence of rational expectations equilibrium, and that policies approximating strict inflation-forecast targeting are likely to have undesirable properties. We also show that economies with more general forecast-based policy rules are particularly susceptible to indeterminacy of rational expectations equilibria. We conclude that, although private-sector forecasts may contain information useful to the central bank, ultimately the monetary authorities must rely on an explicit structural model of the economy to guide their policy decisions.