Staff working papers

• Macroeconomic Determinants of the Term Structure of Corporate Spreads

  Staff Working Paper 2008-29 Jun Yang

  We investigate the macroeconomic determinants of corporate spreads using a no-arbitrage technique. Structural shocks are identified by a New-Keynesian model. Treasury bonds are priced in an affine model with time-varying risk premia.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Debt management, Financial markets, Interest rates JEL Code(s): E, E4, E43, E44, G, G1, G12

• The Welfare Implications of Fiscal Dominance

  Staff Working Paper 2008-28 Carlos De Resende, Nooman Rebei

  This paper studies the interdependence between fiscal and monetary policy in a DSGE model with sticky prices and non-zero trend inflation. We characterize the fiscal and monetary policies by a rule whereby a given fraction k of the government debt must be backed by the discounted value of current and future primary surpluses.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Economic models, Fiscal policy, Inflation: costs and benefits, Monetary policy framework JEL Code(s): E, E3, E31, E4, E42, E5, E50, E6, E63

• Are Bygones not Bygones? Modeling Price Level Targeting with an Escape Clause and Lessons from the Gold Standard

  Staff Working Paper 2008-27 Paul Masson, Malik Shukayev

  Like the gold standard, price level targeting (PT) involves not letting past deviations of inflation be bygones; both regimes return the price level (or price of gold) to its target. The experience of suspension of the gold standard in World War I, resumption in the 1920s (for some countries at a different parity), and final abandonment is reviewed.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Credibility, Monetary policy framework JEL Code(s): E, E3, E31, E5, E52

• Price-Level versus Inflation Targeting with Financial Market Imperfections

  Staff Working Paper 2008-26 Francisco Covas, Yahong Zhang

  This paper compares price-level-path targeting (PT) with inflation targeting (IT) in a sticky-price, dynamic, general equilibrium model augmented with imperfections in both the debt and equity markets.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Economic models, Inflation targets, Monetary policy framework JEL Code(s): E, E4, E40, E5, E50

• Good Policies or Good Fortune: What Drives the Compression in Emerging Market Spreads?

  Staff Working Paper 2008-25 Philipp Maier, Garima Vasishtha

  Since 2002, spreads on emerging market sovereign debt have fallen to historical lows. Given the close links between sovereign spreads, capital flows to emerging markets, and economic growth, understanding the factors driving these spreads is very important. We address this issue in two stages.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Development economics, Financial stability, International topics JEL Code(s): E, E4, E43, F, F3, F34, G, G1, G12, G15

• Do Central Banks Respond to Exchange Rate Movements? Some New Evidence from Structural Estimation

  Staff Working Paper 2008-24 Wei Dong

  This paper investigates the impact of exchange rate movements on the conduct of monetary policy in Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. We develop and estimate a structural general equilibrium two-sector model with sticky prices and wages and limited exchange rate pass-through.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Exchange rates, International topics, Monetary policy framework JEL Code(s): F, F3, F4

• On the Amplification Role of Collateral Constraints

  Staff Working Paper 2008-23 Caterina Mendicino

  Following the seminal contribution of Kiyotaki and Moore (1997), the role of collateral constraints for business cycle fluctuations has been highlighted by several authors and collateralized debt is becoming a popular feature of business cycle models.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Business fluctuations and cycles, Credit and credit aggregates JEL Code(s): E, E2, E20, E3, E32

• Information Shocks, Jumps, and Price Discovery - Evidence from the U.S. Treasury Market

  Staff Working Paper 2008-22 George Jiang, Ingrid Lo, Adrien Verdelhan

  We examine large price changes, known as jumps, in the U.S. Treasury market. Using recently developed statistical tools, we identify price jumps in the 2-, 3-, 5-, 10-year notes and 30-year bond during the period of 2005-2006.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Financial markets JEL Code(s): G, G1, G12, G14

• The Cost of Equity in Canada: An International Comparison

  Staff Working Paper 2008-21 Jonathan Witmer

  This paper calculates an implied cost of equity for 19 developed countries from 1991 to 2006. During this period, there has been a decline in the cost of equity of about 10-15 bps per year, which can be partially attributed to declining government yields and declining inflation.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Financial markets, International topics JEL Code(s): G, G3, G30, G38

• The Effect of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act on CEO Pay for Luck

  Staff Working Paper 2008-20 Teodora Paligorova

  According to the rent-extraction hypothesis, weak corporate governance allows entrenched CEOs to capture the pay-setting process and benefit from events outside of their control – get paid for luck.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Labour markets JEL Code(s): G, G3, G38, J, J3, J33, M, M5, M52