Staff working papers

• Human Capital Risk and the Firmsize Wage Premium

  Staff Working Paper 2008-33 Danny Leung, Alexander Ueberfeldt

  Why do employed persons in large firms earn more than employed persons in small firms, even after controlling for observable characteristics? Complementary to previous results, this paper proposes a mechanism that gives an answer to this question.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Economic models, Labour markets, Productivity JEL Code(s): J, J2, J24, J3, J31

• Market Structure and the Diffusion of E-Commerce: Evidence from the Retail Banking Industry

  Staff Working Paper 2008-32 Jason Allen, Robert Clark, Jean-François Houde

  This paper studies the role that market structure plays in affecting the diffusion of electronic banking. Electronic banking (and electronic commerce more generally) reduces the cost of performing many types of transactions for firms.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Financial institutions, Market structure and pricing JEL Code(s): D, D1, D14, D4, G, G2, G21, L, L1

• Aggregate and Welfare Effects of Redistribution of Wealth Under Inflation and Price-Level Targeting

  Staff Working Paper 2008-31 Césaire Meh, José-Víctor Ríos-Rull, Yaz Terajima

  Since the work of Doepke and Schneider (2006a) and Meh and Terajima (2008), we know that inflation causes major redistribution of wealth – between households and the government, between nationals and foreigners, and between households within the same country.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Economic models, Inflation and prices, Inflation targets, Inflation: costs and benefits, Monetary policy framework, Sectoral balance sheet JEL Code(s): D, D3, D31, E, E2, E21, E3, E31, E4, E44, E5, E52, E6, E63

• Non-Linearities, Model Uncertainty, and Macro Stress Testing

  Staff Working Paper 2008-30 Miroslav Misina, David Tessier

  A distinguishing feature of macro stress testing exercises is the use of macroeconomic models in scenario design and implementation. It is widely agreed that scenarios should be based on "rare but plausible" events that have either resulted in vulnerabilities in the past or could do so in the future.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Financial stability JEL Code(s): C, C1, C15, G, G2, G21, G3, G33

• 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