Unintended Consequences of the Home Affordable Refinance Program Staff Working Paper 2024-11 Phoebe Tian, Chen Zheng We investigate the unintended consequences of the Home Affordable Refinance Program (HARP). Originally designed to help borrowers refinance after the 2008–09 global financial crisis, HARP inadvertently strengthened the market power of incumbent lenders by creating a cost advantage for them. Despite a 2013 policy rectifying this cost advantage, we still find significant welfare losses for borrowers. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Research Topic(s): Financial institutions JEL Code(s): G, G2, G21, G5, G51, L, L5, L51
Mandatory Retention Rules and Bank Risk Staff Working Paper 2023-3 Yuteng Cheng This paper studies, theoretically and empirically, the unintended consequences of mandatory retention rules in securitization. It proposes a novel model showing that while retention strengthens monitoring, it may also encourage banks to shift risk. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Research Topic(s): Credit risk management, Financial institutions, Financial system regulation and policies JEL Code(s): G, G2, G21, G28
Labor Market Policies During an Epidemic Staff Working Paper 2020-54 Serdar Birinci, Fatih Karahan, Yusuf Mercan, Kurt See We study the labour market and welfare effects of expanding unemployment insurance benefits and introducing payroll subsidies during the COVID-19 pandemic. We find that both policies are complementary and are beneficial to different types of workers. Payroll subsidies preserve the employment of workers in highly productive jobs, while unemployment insurance replaces lost income for workers who experience inevitable job loss. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Research Topic(s): Business fluctuations and cycles, Coronavirus disease (COVID-19), Fiscal policy, Labour markets JEL Code(s): E, E2, E24, E6, E62, J, J6, J64
Sectoral Uncertainty Staff Working Paper 2022-38 Efrem Castelnuovo, Kerem Tuzcuoglu, Luis Uzeda We propose a new empirical framework that jointly decomposes the conditional variance of economic time series into a common and a sector-specific uncertainty component. We apply our framework to a disaggregated industrial production series for the US economy. We identify unexpected changes in durable goods uncertainty as drivers of downturns, while unexpected hikes in non-durable goods uncertainty are expansionary. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Research Topic(s): Business fluctuations and cycles, Econometric and statistical methods, Monetary policy and uncertainty JEL Code(s): C, C5, C51, C55, E, E3, E32, E4, E44
Multivariate Tests of Mean-Variance Efficiency and Spanning with a Large Number of Assets and Time-Varying Covariances Staff Working Paper 2013-16 Sermin Gungor, Richard Luger We develop a finite-sample procedure to test for mean-variance efficiency and spanning without imposing any parametric assumptions on the distribution of model disturbances. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Research Topic(s): Asset pricing, Econometric and statistical methods, Financial markets JEL Code(s): C, C1, C12, C15, C3, C33, G, G1, G11, G12
Bond Risk Premia and Gaussian Term Structure Models Staff Working Paper 2014-13 Bruno Feunou, Jean-Sébastien Fontaine Cochrane and Piazzesi (2005) show that (i) lagged forward rates improve the predictability of annual bond returns, adding to current forward rates, and that (ii) a Markovian model for monthly forward rates cannot generate the pattern of predictability in annual returns. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Research Topic(s): Asset pricing, Interest rates JEL Code(s): E, E4, E43, E47, G, G1, G12
Le PIB potentiel des États-Unis et ses déterminants : la productivité de la main-d'oeuvre et le taux d'activité Staff Working Paper 1998-13 René Lalonde This study has three main objectives: first, to determine whether the good performance of the U.S. economy observed in recent years is attributable to an upsurge in potential GDP; second, to identify the variables related to aggregate supply, whose trend might explain the evolution in economic potential; finally, to observe whether, despite everything, the American […] Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers
Labour Markets, Liquidity, and Monetary Policy Regimes Staff Working Paper 2002-32 David Andolfatto, Scott Hendry, Kevin Moran We develop an equilibrium model of the monetary policy transmission mechanism that highlights information frictions in the market for money and search frictions in the market for labour. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Research Topic(s): Monetary policy and uncertainty, Monetary policy transmission JEL Code(s): E, E4, E5
Estimating the Structure of the Payment Network in the LVTS: An Application of Estimating Communities in Network Data Staff Working Paper 2010-13 James Chapman, Nellie Zhang In the Canadian large value payment system an important goal is to understand how liquidity is transferred through the system and hence how efficient the system is in settling payments. Understanding the structure of the underlying network of relationships between participants in the payment system is a crucial step in achieving the goal. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Research Topic(s): Financial stability, Payment clearing and settlement systems JEL Code(s): C, C1, C11, D, D8, D85, G, G2, G20
Benchmark Index of Risk Appetite Staff Working Paper 2006-16 Miroslav Misina Changes in investors' risk appetite have been used to explain a variety of phenomena in asset markets. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Research Topic(s): Economic models, Financial markets JEL Code(s): G, G1, G12