Staff working papers provide a forum for staff to publish work-in-progress research intended for journal publication.
1304
result(s)
Distributional Effects of Payment Card Pricing and Merchant Cost Pass-through in Canada and the United States
Staff Working Paper 2021-8
Marie-Hélène Felt,
Fumiko Hayashi,
Joanna Stavins,
Angelika Welte
Although credit cards are more expensive for merchants to accept than cash or debit cards, merchants typically pass through their costs evenly to all customers. Along with consumer card rewards and banking fees, this creates cross-subsidies between payment methods. Because higher-income individuals tend to use credit cards more than those with lower incomes, our results indicate that these cross-subsidies might lead to regressive distributional effects.
Content Type(s):
Staff research,
Staff working papers
Topic(s):
Bank notes,
Financial institutions,
Financial services,
Market structure and pricing,
Payment clearing and settlement systems
JEL Code(s):
D,
D1,
D12,
D2,
D23,
D3,
D31,
E,
E4,
E42,
G,
G2,
G21,
L,
L8,
L81
Estimating Policy Functions in Payments Systems Using Reinforcement Learning
Staff Working Paper 2021-7
Pablo S. Castro,
Ajit Desai,
Han Du,
Rodney J. Garratt,
Francisco Rivadeneyra
We demonstrate the ability of reinforcement learning techniques to estimate the best-response functions of banks participating in high-value payments systems—a real-world strategic game of incomplete information.
Content Type(s):
Staff research,
Staff working papers
Topic(s):
Digital currencies and fintech,
Financial institutions,
Financial system regulation and policies,
Payment clearing and settlement systems
JEL Code(s):
A,
A1,
A12,
C,
C7,
D,
D8,
D83,
E,
E4,
E42,
E5,
E58
Eggs in One Basket: Security and Convenience of Digital Currencies
Staff Working Paper 2021-6
Charles M. Kahn,
Francisco Rivadeneyra,
Tsz-Nga Wong
Digital currencies store balances in anonymous electronic addresses. This paper analyzes the trade-offs between the safety and convenience of aggregating balances in addresses, electronic wallets and banks.
Content Type(s):
Staff research,
Staff working papers
Topic(s):
Central bank research,
Digital currencies and fintech,
Financial services,
Payment clearing and settlement systems
JEL Code(s):
E,
E4,
E42,
E5,
E51,
E58
(Optimal) Monetary Policy with and without Debt
Staff Working Paper 2021-5
Boris Chafwehé,
Rigas Oikonomou,
Romanos Priftis,
Lukas Vogel
How should policy be designed at high debt levels, when fiscal authorities have little room to adjust taxes? Assigning the monetary authority a role in achieving debt sustainability makes it less effective in stabilizing inflation and output.
Content Type(s):
Staff research,
Staff working papers
Topic(s):
Economic models,
Fiscal policy,
Monetary policy,
Monetary policy framework
JEL Code(s):
C,
C1,
C11,
E,
E3,
E31,
E5,
E52,
E58,
E6,
E62
Networking the Yield Curve: Implications for Monetary Policy
Staff Working Paper 2021-4
Tatjana Dahlhaus,
Julia Schaumburg,
Tatevik Sekhposyan
We study how different monetary policies affect the yield curve and interact. Our study highlights the importance of the spillover structure across the yield curve for policy-making.
Content Type(s):
Staff research,
Staff working papers
Topic(s):
Econometric and statistical methods,
Interest rates,
Monetary policy implementation
JEL Code(s):
C,
C1,
C18,
C2,
C21,
C5,
C53,
E,
E4,
E43,
E44,
E5,
E52
Chinese Monetary Policy and Text Analytics: Connecting Words and Deeds
Staff Working Paper 2021-3
Jeannine Bailliu,
Xinfen Han,
Barbara Sadaba,
Mark Kruger
What are the main drivers behind the monetary policy reaction function of the People’s Bank of China?
Content Type(s):
Staff research,
Staff working papers
Topic(s):
Econometric and statistical methods,
International topics,
Monetary policy communications,
Monetary policy framework
JEL Code(s):
C,
C6,
C63,
E,
E5,
E52,
E58
Using Payments Data to Nowcast Macroeconomic Variables During the Onset of COVID-19
Staff Working Paper 2021-2
James Chapman,
Ajit Desai
We use retail payment data in conjunction with machine learning techniques to predict the effects of COVID-19 on the Canadian economy in near-real time. Our model yields a significant increase in macroeconomic prediction accuracy over a linear benchmark model.
Content Type(s):
Staff research,
Staff working papers
Topic(s):
Econometric and statistical methods,
Payment clearing and settlement systems
JEL Code(s):
C,
C5,
C53,
C55,
E,
E3,
E37,
E4,
E42,
E5,
E52
Allocative Efficiency and the Productivity Slowdown
Staff Working Paper 2021-1
Lin Shao,
Rongsheng Tang
In our analysis of the US productivity slowdown in the 1970s and 2000s, we find that a significant portion of this deceleration can be attributed to a lack of improvement in allocative efficiency across sectors. Our analysis further identifies increased sector-level volatility as a major contributor to this lack of improvement in allocative efficiency.
Content Type(s):
Staff research,
Staff working papers
Topic(s):
Economic models,
Productivity
JEL Code(s):
E,
E2,
E23,
O,
O4,
O47
Consumer Credit with Over-optimistic Borrowers
Staff Working Paper 2020-57
Florian Exler,
Igor Livshits,
James (Jim) C. MacGee,
Michèle Tertilt
When lenders cannot directly identify behavioural and rational borrowers, they use type scoring to track the likelihood of a borrower’s type. This leads to the partial pooling of borrowers, which results in rational borrowers subsidizing borrowing costs for behavioural borrowers. This, in turn, reduces the effectiveness of regulatory policies that target mistakes by behavioural borrowers.
Content Type(s):
Staff research,
Staff working papers
Topic(s):
Credit and credit aggregates,
Credit risk management,
Financial system regulation and policies
JEL Code(s):
E,
E2,
E21,
E4,
E49,
G,
G1,
G18,
K,
K3,
K35